To Steal a Heart
by Tek Sonay
Summary: Sophie thought it was going to be just a normal May Day, but she didn't bargain on the broken promises, a flirtatious stranger, and a deal she can't seem to resist . . .
1. Prologue

**Summary: Sophie thought it was going to be just a normal May Day, but she didn't bargain on the broken promises, a flirtatious stranger, and a deal she can't seem to resist . . .**

**Disclaimer: I wish I owned Howl's Moving Castle, but I don't. Otherwise, I'd have a clean room! ^.^**

**A/N: I've had this idea for some months now. When you are done reading the prologue, let me know what you think. Intriguing? Boring? Who do you think is the lady Sophie is talking to?

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_"To Steal a Heart"_

**Prologue**

Sophie Hatter slipped a hand behind her back and crossed her fingers as the customer inspected a hat.

The customer was a woman of about forty, with stern yet elegant features, and the hat in her hands was one of Sophie's latest designs. The woman was inspecting it carefully, admiring the way its blue-black cloth matched the fabric of her dress, and she seemed particularly pleased with the black lace and neatly stitched cherries along the brim. However, there was hint of doubt in her expression, and it was enough to warn Sophie that she might yet again lose a sale that day.

"It really is quite a charming hat," conceded the customer. She ran her gloved fingers over it as if she might hand it back but was not ready to part with it. "For all of the nice little trinkets I have at home, though, I am wondering if I need it."

"Madame, if a may offer my opinion..." Sophie began in her naturally calm tone.

The client paused in her fidgeting to purse her lips. "Why, of course, dear," she consented, turning the hat at another angle. "It's your shop. Do you think this one suits me?"

"I believe that hat is completely necessary to your style," Sophie replied, guiding the woman to a mirror.

The customer was intrigued. She slipped the hat on her head an turned this way and that.

"My style?" she asked. No other shopkeeper had mentioned it before. She looked down at the gray-clad young woman before her and wondered a bit. "What do you mean?"

Sophie gave a small smile. "The hats seem to pick the customer, madam, and not the other way around." She gestured to her client's starched, blue-black dress. "If you'll excuse me for saying so, you seem to be a rather strait-laced sort of person," Sophie admitted. "One who lives expensively, yet maintains the simple luxuries. This hat reflects that style. And wouldn't you agree that it perfectly suits your dress?"

The older woman glanced down and nodded slowly. "You are quite the saleswoman, young lady," she said, a smile breaking through her stern countenance. "Yes, quite the saleswoman indeed. I'll take it. How much does it cost?"

Sophie could barely hide her relief as she told her the price, and the woman opened her purse and carefully counted out the amount. Sophie went to get change, but when she tried to hand it to her customer, the woman gave her a long, thoughtful look.

"Keep it."

The Hatter girl could not disguise her astonishment.

"But, madam, it's far too much!"

"You think I don't know that?" The woman eyed her pointedly for a moment before smiling once again. "Have a good day," she stated over her shoulder as she strolled towards the front door.

Sophie was astounded. However, habit saved her, and she quickly recovered her manners in time to return the farewell and thank her for her kindness. The customer paused with her hand on the doorknob.

"Tell me, girl," the older woman said. The stitched cherries on her new hat seemed to glitter as she turned her head. "Do you have any... siblings?"

Sophie blinked and subconsciously bit her bottom lip. Her hand twisted slightly in the gray material of her skirt as she gently cleared her throat.

"I am the eldest of three," she said with accustomed practice.

The woman at the door sighed and shook her head. "Such a waste..." she mumbled. Then she opened the door and carried herself outside, the words "such a waste" left lingering in the air behind her.


	2. The Hat Shop

**A/N: Thank you, everyone, for the reviews! I am glad you thought the prologue was interesting. Just to let you know, this story is a movie/book mix. Sophie will have two sisters, Martha and Lettie, like she did in the book. I'll be doing lots of little mixes in this story, so if you get confused or lost, just message me and I'll try to clarify things for you. **

**All I ask when you read this story is that you take it for what it is: a fanfiction story. Please try not to analyze it too much. :)**

**By the way, to avoid further confusion, the shop girls in this story are from neither the book nor the movie - I made them up. I hope you like their personalities and don't find them too intrusive into a loved tale of Howl and Sophie. :P**

**Disclaimer: I don't even own my own room at this moment, so how could I possibly own the rights to a multi-million dollar film? I do not own Howl's Moving Castle. **

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_"To Steal a Heart"_

**Chapter 1: The Hat Shop**

Sophie stared at the door a few seconds after the customer had left.

"Such an interesting woman . . ." she murmured. Then she shook away the burden of the customer's parting words. Well, fated to a dull life or not, she still had a job to do and a lifestyle to maintain.

With measured steps, Sophie walked over to the cash register and deposited the woman's change. Rays of sunlight streamed through the shop's tidy windows and warmed the air as she worked. She fished a piece of parchment out of the drawer as she began totaling the earnings of the day so far. "Okay, so that's half a pound . . ." Sophie licked the tip of her pen before dipping it into the inkwell, and shortly she was scratching figures across the parchment.

Sophie's hat shop was in Market Chipping, a place she had lived in since the beginning of her nineteen years. Her father had owned it, but upon his death, the shop had passed into the care of Fanny Hatter, her good-natured yet often silly stepmother. Since Fanny was currently away on "husband hunting" business, Sophie was in charge, and that meant that she had to take extra care of the funds.

A wisp of ginger hair escaped her tight braid. She whisked it off her forehead distractedly, pausing to listen to the excited noises coming from outside the shop. Today was May Day, one of the biggest events in Market Chipping. People from all over Ingary came there to participate in the festivities, and on the streets, one might run into wizards or witches or nobles along with the average civilians. Sophie particularly liked May Day because the customers it drew supplied the much needed income to keep the hat shop going. And maybe this year she'd even have enough left over to purchase gifts for her sisters.

Sophie was marking down the last of the figures when she heard the sound of feet padding on the carpet. She glanced up. Her features immediately softened at the sight of Rose, the hat shop's youngest worker.

Rose was fifteen, two years younger than Sophie's sister Lettie. She was a pretty girl, with thick strawberry-blonde curls and large blue eyes, and she was sweet, as well as one of the few people who actually tried to draw Sophie out of her shell. However, there was nothing sweet about the look Rose was giving her supervisor now, and the way she crossed her arms and tapped her toe insinuated a happening rather ominous.

Sophie carefully set down the pen and searched Rose's eyes.

"Henrietta?" she guessed.

The tightening of Rose's mouth was all the confirmation needed.

With a sigh, Sophie walked over to the side parlor where the girl was standing and touched her shoulder. "Watch the shop for me?"

"Sophie, she's been whining for the past hour!" Rose exclaimed. "It's been, 'Why can't I do this?' and 'Why can't I do that?' and 'Sophie's a _slave _driver, the way she makes us fix those hats!'"

"What has she been complaining about?" the eldest Hatter asked, tilting her head warily.

Rose blew a stray curl out of her face and tried to calm her frustration. "She wants to go out and celebrate May Day," she responded. She rolled her eyes heavenward and tapped her toe again. "_Really._ I honestly think that if all of Henrietta's desires were solid, we could surely build a castle out of them!"

Sophie stifled a laugh at Rose's all too true analogy and headed down the hall towards the back rooms. So Henrietta wanted to take time off to participate in the festivities . . . Maybe they could reach a compromise.

One last whisper-yell of Rose's reached her ears. "Don't let her walk all over you, Sophie!"

Sophie smiled and waved her away. It was time to see what she was up against.

Henrietta's voice was the first to make itself known, of course. Despite her best efforts, Sophie had come to greatly dislike that voice, finding it altogether unpleasant and draining. Henrietta was currently lamenting on behalf of her sore fingers.

"Oh! It hurts to even pick up a needle! And - what's this? A blister! I have blister on my finger!"

"Don't be silly, Henrietta," lightly scolded an amused yet careless-sounding voice. "You couldn't have decorated but two hats in the last three hours."

That would be Ariel, the third of the four hat shop girls. Charlotte was the fourth, but Sophie doubted she would be hearing her voice from any such distance.

The hallway was relatively short, and Sophie soon found herself standing inside the doorway of the room the girls occupied.

The three were sitting around a square table in the center of the room. Hats in various stages of decoration were piled up all around them, some in neat stacks on the table or the floor and others haphazardly sticking out of boxes along the walls. Bright afternoon sunlight illuminated everything as they worked, and dust motes floated lightly across Sophie's vision as she settled her eyes on Henrietta.

Henrietta was sitting at the left side of the table. She was a beautiful young woman, with glossy flaxen hair, peaches and cream skin, and blue eyes that could entrap a man with one flutter of an eyelash. For all of her gentle beauty, however, she was bold and oftentimes rash when it came to controlling her tongue. Henrietta felt that at one and twenty and being two years senior to Sophie that she should have special privileges, and she did not at all like the thought that she had to take orders from someone so plain and inferior in appearance.

Sophie waited patiently for Henrietta to notice her.

"Oh, _Sophie_, dear!" Henrietta almost dropped her needle at her supervisor's sudden appearance. "Why, you were as quiet as a mouse, I didn't notice you standing there! _Do _have a seat," she gushed, her voice becoming more syrupy upon each syllable. "We were just talking about you."

"How is your blister?" Sophie asked, calmly perching herself on a stool beside Ariel.

A momentary flash of irritation crossed Henrietta's face when she realized that Sophie had heard part if not all of her conversation, but she quickly covered it with a brilliant smile.

"Oh, this little thing?" she asked, holding her practically perfect finger into the light. "The pain has receded to a dull throb now, so I'm sure I shall be all right."

Sophie avoided rolling her eyes as she turned to Ariel. The chestnut-haired, nineteen year old was intently stitching a last bit of cream-coloured gauze around an ornate pink-paper rose.

"What's the tally so far, Ariel?" Sophie asked.

Ariel pushed the needle through one last time before holding the hat up to admire. "Well, with the combined efforts of the five of us," she reported in an almost bored tone, "we have six incomplete and eleven complete, this being the eleventh."

Sophie nodded. It was a good bit of progress. She placed her hands in her lap and gazed about the room.

"Where are the six incomplete?"

"We had to move them to make room for materials," Ariel replied, pointing out their location on a chair by the door.

The shop girls were very good at decorating hats, but everyone knew that Sophie was the best. There was just something about the way hers turned out, as if the very hats themselves had personalities of their own. So while Sophie worked in the front of the shop, one of the girls would prepare a few hats for her to embellish later.

The eldest Hatter was thanking Ariel when Henrietta spoke up again.

"Honestly, though," Henrietta fussed. "I don't see why we bother making so many hats when so few seem to sell these days."

Sophie paused. "Excuse me?"

The other two girls ceased stitching to watch them.

Henrietta held Sophie's gaze almost impudently as she tapped her fingers along the table's edge. "I'm just saying . . . It seems as though 'Hatters' isn't doing as well as it ought."

"The shop is fine," Sophie replied curtly through closed teeth.

Charlotte, Henrietta's twenty year old, raven-haired friend, looked warily between them. She leaned over and whispered something in Henrietta's ear. Henrietta frowned at her and waved her away.

"Nonsense," she muttered to Charlotte. "All I'm asking," she continued, turning to Sophie, "is that you allow us time off today. It's May Day! And you yourself seemed pleased with the progress we made with the hats."

Charlotte brushed a black lock off her shoulder and leveled her pale blue eyes on Sophie. "It need only be for an hour or so," she suggested quietly.

Sophie sat back for a moment to think it over. Time off? She was actually rather ashamed that the thought had not occurred to her. They _were_ girls, after all, and their mind-set was bit more fun-loving than her own.

"Ooh, shopping!" she heard Ariel say to her right. "So when do we get started?"

Sophie glanced at the small cuckoo clock on the shelf under the windows. Fifteen minutes until one o'clock. Henrietta had been right, as much as she hated to admit it. They _had _made good progress.

'_Oh well,' _she wondered. '_What's the harm?'_

"All right, ladies, you can go," Sophie said aloud, trying to ignore the smug look of triumph on Henrietta's face while she enjoyed the happiness in Charlotte's and Ariel's. "You have until four o'clock to be back."

Even Henrietta had the decency to look surprised.

"'Til four o'clock?" Ariel exclaimed. "Why, that's in three whole hours!"

"I never knew you to be so generous, Sophie," Henrietta simpered.

Sophie stood and gave her a steady look until Henrietta adverted her gaze. Then she glanced at the other two girls. "Wait for me here. I'll be right back."

Back in the front of the shop, Rose bombarded her with questions.

"How did it go?" she asked, jumping up from a stool. "Was Henrietta unhappy? Did she complain much? Did you put her in her place?"

"Easy now!" Sophie said with a gentle laugh. "One at a time!"

Rose pouted prettily, something she was getting better and better at doing as she blossomed into womanhood. She followed Sophie to the strong box, where Sophie began taking out coins and putting them into four small pouches.

"How many customers did you get?" she asked Rose as she worked.

Rose's expression immediately became a mixture of delight and distaste.

"Two!" she reported. "And both purchased something. One was a squashy man, who _insisted_, against my suggestion, that pink was _not _his colour -"

"Rose!" Sophie admonished. "You didn't argue with him, did you?"

"No, Sophie, I merely . . . came to a compromise. He bought the lavender one instead." Rose's eyes became very large as a grin spread on her face. "Oh, Sophie, then there was this _other _customer! He was so handsome and had these amazing blue-green eyes -!"

"Mm-hmm. Hold these, please." Sophie handed her two of the pouches.

Rose frowned. "Hey, you're not even listening to me."

"I am."

"Well . . . he was just gorgeous! And he bought one of our most expensive hats. He picked the red and black harlequin one, which I thought was odd, because you always say that that hat speaks of arrogance, and he didn't seem at all that way. Well, maybe a little."

Sophie locked the strong box and slipped the key in her pocket. Turning to Rose, she took the two pouches out of her hands and replaced them with a small pink one.

"I'm sure he was very interesting. Now here - tuck this safely away."

Rose opened her pouch and peered inside. She gave a small gasp of surprise. "But, Sophie!" she exclaimed. "This is a week's worth of wages, and today's not yet over!"

Sophie smiled kindly at her. "You've earned it. Come with me; I've got to give the other girls theirs."

"Wait, Sophie!" Rose grabbed her arm as she started to turn. She searched her older friend's impenetrable gray eyes, hoping to find an answer to the question she had yet to ask. "Sophie . . . Henrietta didn't bully you into anything, did she?"

Sophie gazed down at her and thought about it.

"No . . . no, she didn't. Just think of it as me lightening up a bit."

Rose was about to ask her what she meant when the sound of the other three girls coming up the hallway caught her attention. Henrietta, Ariel, and Charlotte soon appeared in the front parlor, dressed for an outing with their gloves and hats on. Confused, Rose walked up to them and asked them exactly where they were going.

"Why, didn't you hear?" Ariel exclaimed. "Sophie's letting us go to May Day until four o'clock!"

"She's _what_?"

"Here you go," Sophie said, handing them each a little pouch. "I thought you might like to have some spending money. After all, it _is _Friday, and I would be giving these to you later tonight anyways." She looked at them until it was understood by each to be back precisely at four, for they still had yet to earn all of Friday's wages.

Henrietta smirked at Sophie as she walked past. "My my, dear, how benevolent of you!" she crooned. "I didn't think you could _afford _to be so generous!"

Rose ground her teeth and was about to leap to Sophie's defense, but her supervisor motioned for her to stop. Sophie slowly turned her head towards Henrietta and pinned her with a gaze. "I _can _take that back," she said evenly, holding out her hand.

Henrietta's smirk dropped from her face. She turned nervously back to Charlotte. "So . . . what were you saying, dear . . .?"

Sophie tightened her jaw and left them to their conversation. Rose walked with her over to the register.

"I'm sorry for not telling you right away," Sophie said when they were out of earshot. "It's just that . . . Well, you remind me so much of my little sisters that I was afraid of being scolded."

"It's all right, Sophie," Rose said after a moment. "I just don't like the thought of you letting anyone walk over you. You're too strong for that. And you have too big of a heart to waste by letting people trample it."

"You seem to have something else on your mind as well," Sophie commented when she fell silent. A telling-blush spotted Rose's cheeks.

"Ah, well . . ." Rose glanced away. "You see, at two o'clock . . ."

"Your beau is coming here to see you, and you were hoping to wait here with me until then rather than go with the others?"

Rose's blue eyes widened. "How did you know?"

"Observing," Sophie said with a smile. "Thinking."

"Little seems to get past _you_, Sophie!" Rose shook her head. "If I ever meet your future husband, I should say, 'Watch out! You'll have no secrets you can keep with Sophie!"

Sophie laughed lightly in response and shook her head, though her actions were for different reasons. Yes, it was an amusing thought, but one she doubted would ever come to pass. Sophie did not believe she would ever marry; no man would ever find her pretty enough. But she could hope, and even dream . . .

Ariel's voice penetrated her thoughts. "Are you coming, Rose?" the much more cheerful, chestnut-haired girl asked with a wave. Rose responded with a 'no,' and the girls were soon heading towards the door. Sophie's ears followed their fading conversation.

"So you say that they've spotted wizard near Market Chipping?" Charlotte asked, curiosity getting the best of her brooding nature.

Henrietta practically squealed in excitement. "Yes! Some of the girls say Sorcerer Jenkins was seen near Cesari's just yesterday!"

"Sorcerer Jenkins!" Ariel gasped, clapping her gloved hands together. "You mean that incredibly handsome wizard who helps out the poor in Porthaven?"

Charlotte muttered something that was unintelligible to Sophie from such a distance, but all three girls laughed.

"Oh, I would not mind it in the _least_ bit if he were to accost one of us at May Day," Henrietta tittered, fluttering her eyelashes becomingly. "I mean, I might be terribly jealous if it was one of you, but I would at least get to see him."

"Let's just hope you find the right wizard," Ariel warned. "I hear Jenkins isn't the only one out there."

"Really?" Henrietta was intrigued. "Who? Surely not . . ."

"Wizard Howl," Ariel declared, nodding knowingly. All of the girls simultaneously shuddered including Sophie.

"His castle was spotted roaming the hillside above Market Chipping two days ago," Ariel continued in a hushed voice. She shuddered again. "Horrible, ugly old man . . ."

"Is it true that he eats girls' hearts?" Charlotte asked, looking at the other two.

They had finally reached the door after all of their stops and slow walking. Henrietta smoothed her pretty blonde hair back and placed a hand on the door knob. "Yes, Charlotte, but only the hearts of pretty girls. It's a fact I am ever so thankful for." She glanced over at Sophie, whom she knew was listening. "You see, now I can leave dear Sophie by herself without having to worry for her safety."

Sophie felt color rising in her cheeks as Ariel stifled her laughter behind a hand. Then she heard the steps of her little fifteen-year old worker come up beside her.

"That was pretty good, Henrietta," Rose called across the room. Sophie hadn't even known she had been listening. "But I think we have to worry about _you _even less. Wizard Howl might waste his time with you only to discover that you don't even _have _a heart."

Henrietta glared and pulled open the door, stomping down the steps as she told the others to follow. Ariel's snickers carried back into the shop before the door closed.

"You have to admit, little Rose is pretty witty . . ."

"Do shut up, Ariel . . ."


	3. The Flirtatious Stranger

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**Touch-up on last chapter: Sophie let the shop girls take part of the day off to go enjoy the May Day festivities. She told them to be back by four o'clock. ****Cesari's****, by the way, is the pastry shop where her sister works.**

A/N: Thank you, everyone, for the reviews! It really makes me happy to get your input or to just know what you're thinking.

**Disclaimer: Howl owns Sophie, Sophie owns Howl, the King of Ingary owns Ingary . . . Do you see my name anywhere in there?**

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"_To Steal a Heart"_

**Chapter 2: The Flirtatious Stranger**

Two o'clock had come and gone, Rose along with it. Little could Sophie forget the look of pure joy on Rose's beau's face when he had been told the news.

"_Really?!_" he had exclaimed. "Three whole hours?!"

When the young couple had left, Sophie had been surprised to feel a small twinge of pain in her chest, like her heart was mourning a dream that her mind had long ago locked in its cupboards. She had patted the place above it and shook her head, "Silly thing," before moving to the back workroom to collect a few of the incomplete hats that Ariel had left her.

Solitude had never been a problem for Sophie. In fact, growing up with two sisters, she welcomed the moments she had all to herself. She passed the quiet hours in the shop in comfort. Customers came and went; most purchased something, others did not. She spent most of her spare time that afternoon sewing fabric leaves onto a felt hat of tangerine orange. It was a charming hat, and Sophie could not help but think it would suit someone silly, like her step-mother Fanny.

Fifteen minutes until four, Sophie started glancing towards the door. Four o'clock came and went; still no sign of the girls.

Sophie began to fidget. At first she thought that they had gotten side-tracked. After all, they were likely having a grand time, and there was a lot of traffic on May Day. Then four-fifteen came . . . four-twenty . . .

It was four-thirty when the first of the shop girls came back.

Ariel walked through the front door, unaccompanied and beaming.

"Ah, what a grand time!" she exclaimed, tossing her hat on a hat-rack. She immediately picked it up again, realizing that she had put it with the ones for sale.

"Oh, hello, Sophie," Ariel said when she noticed her. "I'm sorry for being so late. I got stuck in an _excruciatingly _long line at Cesari's and didn't get through until about ten minutes ago. Saw your sister, though. Well, _slightly_." Ariel tapped her chin. "I think I caught a glimpse of her hair through all of those gents who hang about her counter."

Sophie should not have been caught off guard by the whirlwind of energy, but she was. It always amazed her how quickly Ariel switched from being bored and careless to energetic and peppy-toned. After a moment, she had recovered enough to say, "Well, all right then."

Sophie smiled as she thought of her sister, Martha, and the attention she got at the pastry shop. She planned to visit her later that evening and hoped to find her as well as Ariel insinuated.

"But, wait!" Sophie called, stopping Ariel as the shop girl started meandering towards the back room. "Where . . . where are Henrietta and Charlotte? I assumed they might be with you."

"Oh, them?" Ariel shrugged and stifled a yawn. "We separated about half an hour after we left."

"Do you know where they are?"

Ariel was slowly slipping back into her careless workroom attitude, but at this question she paused. Her fingers came up to tap her chin again.

"Actually . . . No, I don't. You put Henrietta into quite a tizzy, so I got away from her as quickly as possible. You see, Sophie . . ." Ariel shifted forward. "Henrietta usually shows us a pretty good time, but sometimes she gets into these moods, you know what I mean? It's as if she can't listen to reason, and I find it extremely annoying. That's why I'm thankful for Charlotte." She crossed her arms and laughed. "I don't know what she whispers in her ear, but it usually calms Henrietta down."

Sophie's frown furrowed her smooth brow with worry.

"Ah, well . . . Thank you, Ariel, for that news . . ."

Ariel shrugged. She shortly headed to the back room, leaving Sophie to her thoughts.

Five o'clock came.

Rose arrived precisely on time, aglow with romantic thoughts until she wondered why the shop was so quiet. When Sophie told her that two of the girls had not shown up, Rose was indignant.

"Why, that's practically treasonous!" she exclaimed. She would have marched out to find them had not Sophie stopped her.

The cuckoo clock struck five-thirty by the time Sophie made a decision. She realized that if Henrietta had any intention of coming back, she would have done so by then. It was possible that Charlotte was a victim in this situation; however, she _was_ free to make her own decisions… She could have made the choice to come back to the shop, and she had chosen to stay away.

Sophie was irritated. However, years of being an eldest sister had taught her how to be calm in trying situations, and it was with much reasoning and logic that she brought her final decision to Rose and Ariel in the back room.

"You two can go home now," she announced.

Of course, they immediately jumped to conclusions.

"_What?!_" Rose cried. "Did we do something wrong?!"

"Yup. Slight fever," Ariel declared, actually placing her palm against Sophie's forehead. "Just as we suspected."

Sophie protested and shooed them away, stating that she was perfectly healthy and that they had done nothing wrong in the least. She felt the two girls had _more_ than earned their Friday's wages after the hard work they had done.

"Besides," Sophie explained. "I don't want you going home in the dark, especially on May Day. There are too many strangers in Market Chipping, and they could easily snatch you away."

Rose did her best to persuade Sophie otherwise, but there was nothing she could do to change Sophie's mind. Ariel was perfectly content with the decision. It was not to be testified that she even once attempted to argue with her supervisor. So without further ado, Ariel and Rose gathered their things and were swept out the front door.

And it was about five thirty-five when Sophie finally locked the hat shop.

The evening air felt warm as Sophie stepped outside. She stood there a minute on the steps, drinking in the late wash of sunshine as dusk prepared to settle over Market Chipping. It was the first time she had been out of the hat shop since noon earlier that day. The sky was a gentle blue, with occasional large, fluffy clouds ambling across it, and the western horizon had more than a touch of pink and yellow. A cool snippet of breeze was in the air. It twirled around and tickled Sophie's cheek as she reached up to adjust the ribbon on her plain straw hat.

A great quantity of people were still on the streets. Those of respectable families were beginning to retire for the day, while different sorts of characters began to emerge from the workshops and shadows of the alleyways. However, Market Chipping was a reputable town, so even the most disagreeable of these characters had a tendency to keep to themselves.

Sophie took a deep breath and stepped off the steps. Off to Cesari's then.

She caught the tram and let it take her halfway there, then traveled the rest of the way on foot. Sophie always made it a point to walk with her back straight, her eyes forward, and her chin at just the right height, not too high and not too low. Sophie walked in a manner that attracted as little attention as possible. She had the ability of walking invisibly down to an art.

Cesari's could be seen right across the square. Martha would be inside; her delicate hands would be passing out pastries on demand and her lips would quirk up with an ever-ready smile. Now that Sophie was this close, she realized how very much she wanted to see her youngest sister. Rose was darling, but it wasn't quite the same. What Sophie needed was to talk to someone who truly understood her, someone who she could just be herself around.

There were a lot of people between Sophie and Cesari's. She slowly started squeezing her way through the crowd in the general direction of the pastry shop.

"Um . . . excuse me . . . excuse me . . . pardon me . . . I'm sorry, sir; might I get through? Excuse me, ma'am . . ." was Sophie's progress through the oblivious and distracted group of people.

Near the edge of the crowd, Sophie spotted a blessed clearing that would make her path so much easier.

"Ah, thank goodness!" she murmured, picking up her pace. She was taking her first step out from the crowd when someone bumped into her from behind.

"Whoah! Sorry, lady -" came to her ears as she stumbled out into the clearing. Her hat went flying from her head as she tried to regain her balance.

Sophie's tight braid loyally held, but wisps of ginger hair stuck out all over her head. She attempted to smooth them down with her hands as she looked around.

The person who bumped her was nowhere to be seen. Her straw hat lay on the ground a few feet away, having miraculously landed upright. Sophie sighed in relief and walked towards it.

***'**_**Crunch'**__*_

Sophie watched in dismay as a man's foot punched right through it. The man stopped in surprise and picked it off the ground. Bits of straw floated through the air.

"Oh, um . . . Sorry, miss!" he apologized when he saw Sophie standing there. "Really, I am. But I'm kind of in a hurry! Here -" He gave Sophie her hat and hastily pressed some coins into her hand. "Buy yourself a new one. Sorry!" He ran off with a wave, leaving Sophie standing there looking after him.

She briefly slid her eyes shut. For a moment, she had to battle her rising frustration. First the shop was losing business, then there were issues with Henrietta, and now her hat had been all but annihilated. Sophie was a tough girl, but a person can only deal with so much in a day. However, when she opened her eyes and looked at the money that poor man had put in her hand, the corners of her mouth reluctantly twitched upwards in amusement.

"I _sell _hats for a _living_," she murmured. "Why on earth would I need to go out and buy one?"

Shaking her head, she tucked her ruined hat under her arm and slipped the money into her pocket. Then she glanced ahead to see if she could spot Cesari's.

The hair on the nape of her neck prickled.

Sophie froze.

Someone was watching her.

Her initial reaction was to look around carefully, but she realized that sometimes the quickest way to dispatch a starer was to shame them out of their rudeness. So Sophie lifted her chin and gazed about, boldly, daring whoever it was to make themselves known.

She locked eyes with one of the most handsome men she had ever seen.

And he was wearing one of her hats.

His gaze was full of self-possession and almost brazen the way he returned her stare. He wore an open-necked white shirt with billowy sleeves, and a robe-like jacket with large black and red diamonds was draped over his shoulders. His top hat, like the jacket, also had a black and red harlequin pattern, and even from a distance, Sophie could see that it was the one Rose had sold earlier.

'_Well_, _she certainly hadn't been exaggerating when she said he was attractive_," Sophie could hardly help thinking.

Her thoughts must have somehow been conveyed through her eyes, for he suddenly smiled alluringly and began walking towards her.

Sophie's eyes widened.

She hurriedly looked away from his side of the clearing and walked rapidly towards Cesari's. She could not believe that she, Sophie Hatter, had almost been accosted!

"What was I _thinking_, staring at him for so long?" she quietly chastised herself, looking at the ground. "It's always been 'don't maintain eye contact,' 'avoid maintaining eye contact,' so _why_ did I maintain eye contact?"

"Hey, my eyes aren't _that_ bad, are they?" murmured a low voice next to her ear.

Sophie's heart practically leapt in her throat as she whirled around.

The man in the harlequin hat narrowly avoided getting slapped in the face by Sophie's braid. He looked down at her with a mixture of amusement and intrigue. Then his flirtatious side was stirred.

"My, my, you are a dangerous little mouse, aren't you?"

"What do you want?" Sophie demanded. In her opinion,if there was any stranger to avoid having extended conversation with, it was a handsome one. It was all too easy to be swayed from logic.

She took a step back as he leaned towards her.

"Me?" he asked innocently. His uneven blonde locks swayed off his shoulders against his cheekbones, and a red jewel that dangled from his left earlobe gave him a roguish semblance. "Why, nothing in particular. It's just that I had noticed the little incident with your hat." He gestured to the ruined head-piece under her arm, his voice still what Sophie suspected was his natural, even tone. "I wanted to give you my regrets. It was a rather unfortunate accident. And the man hadn't even had the decency to stop."

"Well, your concern is noted," Sophie replied rather uneasily. She twisted the ribbon on her crushed hat and turned to walk away.

The man neatly blocked her path, an action that put Sophie instantly on guard.

"I just got a marvelous idea," he declared, flashing her a brilliant smile. "How about you come have a drink with me . . . And I'll show you a charming little hat shop I discovered today."

"No, thank you," Sophie said firmly. She had no doubt that he was talking about her own Hatter's and was only glad that she had been in the back room upon his visit. "And I already have a hat shop I frequent."

"It can't be better than mine," he teased, drawing closer. His presence made her a bit flustered.

"O-oh, it's much better, I can assure you," she weakly bantered. Then she took another step back. '_What is this foolishness?'_ Sophie mentally chastised herself. She looked at the sunset. '_I need to get __to Cesari's!_'

"Good-bye," Sophie said curtly.

"Allow me to be your escort this evening, then . . ." He moved his arm from under the black and red jacket and offered it gallantly to Sophie. "It wouldn't be right to let a delicate mouse like you traverse Market Chipping alone this late in the evening . . . no matter how bold your stare might be," he added with a wink.

It was then that Sophie caught a lilt of something in his voice, something that was unfortunately very familiar.

He pitied her. He saw her plain gray dress and assumed that since she was alone, she wanted company. And he thought himself the perfect candidate to do her a favor.

'_Rose was wrong_,' Sophie thought wryly, '_that arrogant hat _entirely _suits him_.'

Completely ignoring his offered arm, Sophie tilted up her chin and marched around him. "I can take care of _myself_," she muttered irritably. She was tired of people's pity. And if there was any favor to be taken, it surely would not be accepted from a handsome, cocky man who stopped previously engaged young ladies on the street.

Sophie was a few feet away when she imagined she heard him utter, "Of course you can."

Then suddenly, she was falling.

Absolutely nothing had been on the street before her. It was as if Sophie had tripped on thin air. However, if she had known any better, she would have identified it as magic that had caused the mischief.

The ground was quickly rising up to meet Sophie's shocked face when the man reached out and caught her wrist. Electricity, a power, as she would later describe it, raced through Sophie's body from where their skin made contact. And then it was gone, raced away with the rapid beats of her heart.

Her wrist still in his grasp, Sophie whirled around to face him. Their eyes locked again, but this time, Sophie tried to look into him rather than at him. His eyes were like marbles: beautiful, blue-green, alluring . . . Yet as Sophie stared into his eyes, she soon saw that something was missing, something too important for him to be trusted.

The man started to take her hand into both of his.

"Are you all right?" There was a twitch of amusement at the corner of his mouth. His expression quickly turned to surprise as she jerked her wrist from him.

"Don't touch me!" she cried. Calm, logical Sophie was having a difficult time controlling her emotions. A mixture of anger, attraction, and fear swept through her, and she was sure it had something to do with the power she had felt when he touched her wrist. "Just don't touch me!"

And with that, Sophie spun around and dashed off towards the haven of Cesari's, leaving a very intrigued stranger in her wake.


	4. Pastry Shop Chaos

******Touch-up on last chapter: Sophie was in Market Square when someone stepped on her hat. Shortly after, a blonde stranger accosted her, and the chapter ended with Sophie fleeing towards Cesari's.**

**A/N: Wow, I never expected to get so much input on this story! Thank you, everyone, for taking the time to read my work. Hopefully, you in turn are being entertained.**

**As you can see, I'll probably be updating this story every month (or two, in this case ^_^'). Just letting you know so you won't always be looking for it.  
**

**ALSO! In the Michael and Markl vote, Michael won. Sorry to you guys who wanted Markl - I love him, too! But I have to say that Michael does fit this story better.**

**Disclaimer: No one owns Howl - except Sophie ^.^ She totally owns Howl.**_

* * *

_

_"To Steal a Heart"_

**Chapter 3: Pastry Shop Chaos**

A breeze teased the blonde stranger's locks as his eyes followed the gray-mouse girl into Cesari's.

Any passerby who happened to glance at him might assume he was content and relaxed, but a closer look would reveal a carefully concealed wall that guarded his true emotions. Inside, he was curious, surprised . . . worried. His red and black jacket-coat swished behind him as he melded back into the crowd.

The target he was seeking was not far. It was a jewelry store, located on a side-street that branched out from Market Chipping's main square. The man had visited it a couple of times previously, but it was not jewelry that interested him today.

He paused on the street, looking at the jewelry store's window. Its broad, smooth paned reflected more of the outside than it allowed sight into the inside. That's what he loved about it. He stepped up to the mirror-like glass and overlooked the fact that he was receiving some curious stares.

"Hmm . .. " The blonde stranger examined his features in the reflection. His blue-green, thickly-lashed eyes traced the cocky arch of his brow, down his straight nose, to the lips that had tempted many a girl from reason. He tilted his head and made sure that not a speck of dirt marred the clean-shaven edge of his jawline, or that his slightly defined cheekbones had not given him a hollow look. He patted his hair and touched the sparkling red earring.

"Hnn . . ." The corners of his mouth turned down in puzzlement. The blonde stranger stared at himself for a second, trying to answer the unuttered question in his mind.

Then his gaze alighted on the reflection of his harlequin hat.

He reached up and took off the accessory. Hiding it behind his back, he struck a gallant pose. There was a turning of this way and that, a sweeping of a bow, the well-accustomed practice of a wink. The stranger smiled at himself, tried his wiles on himself, and soon he was standing there as before, a confused expression on his face.

He slipped the hat back on.

More than a few curious onlookers paused to watch this handsome young man ogle himself in the jeweler's window. They saw him smirk and make gestures that would have made any young lady swoon in pleasure had the attention been directed at her instead of at himself. The hat came on and off: on, pose; off, pose; on, pose; off, pose. This continued for several moments, until the stranger finally left the hat on his head and stared at his reflection.

"I don't understand," he murmured. The normally self-assured, attractive man felt utterly perplexed. "I'm perfect! Why did she reject me?"

* * *

Sophie stood against a wall inside Cesari's, clutching her crushed straw hat to her chest. Her wary eyes were fixated on the bakery's entrance. Part of her wanted to see the flirtatious, incorrigible stranger walk through those doors after her, but a stronger side of her dreaded it. She had no idea how she might react if he continued to pressure her, and she was certain that she would scream if he touched her again. Her pale wrist still tingled from where they had made contact.

For five minutes she stood staring at Cesari's entrance, an inconspicuous wisp of a person amid a boisterous, colorful crowd. A steady stream of people poured into the popular bakery, laughter on their lips and food on their minds. Their feet paused in clustering lines that led to the counter on the far side of the shop; their love of conversation and knack of moving slowly made it so that more people were coming into the shop but few were leaving.

Sophie would have watched the door longer. However, the sunlight glimmering through the windows had taken on a dusky orange and yellow hue, and match-bearers began kindling lamps in the recesses to ward away the oncoming shadows. If she did not see her sister now, she would be going home in the dark, not an appealing option, considering the gossip of wizards and rogues in the area.

_'Hopefully, Martha's on break. . .'_ Sophie thought, anticipating but a bit uneasy.

Sophie tried to calm her trembling nerves as she stepped away from the wall. Her head felt exposed without her hat to cover it. She glanced back towards the doorway only once; the blonde stranger was no where to be seen. Then a large gentleman sidled into view, and the crowd once more took possession of her attention.

Crowds did not seem to like Sophie. Someone bumped into her. An elbow jarred her in the side. Sophie took a deep breath and began to weave her way around the clusters of people, careful to avoid waving arms or heads suddenly tossed back in laughter.

Farther she went up the "line" towards the counter. No one seemed to notice that she was passing them. A lady accidentally stepped on her toe; one old man puffed cigar smoke past her face.

At one point, when she was almost near the counter, a young man with a flamboyant mustache actually almost knocked Sophie down. Now Sophie had thought herself very lucky to have not been noticed so far, but the man hardly spared her a glance.

"Well!" she exclaimed in quiet and extreme annoyance. She glanced around, half expecting the blonde stranger to appear again and offer her his "regrets" for the man's brusqueness. Of course, no such savior appeared. She continued with tacit frustration.

A large group of gentlemen were gathered around the counter when Sophie arrived near the front of the line. Their attention was riveted on someone behind the counter.

"Hello, lovely, would you mind bringing me a loaf of fresh bread and two of those delicious-looking pastries there?"

"Don't go to _him_ first, dear! As you can see, I am the better-looking and much more charming custo -"

"You know, I came here for dessert; a smile of yours should do nicely."

"Hey, over here, Lettie - I mean, Martha!"

And so on went the banter.

It was obvious that Martha was on duty. Sophie bit her lip in anticipation and stood on her toes, trying to see around the gentlemen.

"_Excuse_ me, miss . . ." Someone tapped on her shoulder none too gently. Sophie turned in mild surprise, distracted, to see a woman with a rather unpleasant face staring at her. The corners of the woman's mouth were turned down in a stern frown.

"Yes?"

"I don't believe you were in front of me a moment ago . . ." the woman said disapprovingly. She lifted her eyebrow for emphasis.

Sophie tapped her boot impatiently. "Don't worry, ma'am. I'm not here to order," she replied, then turned back towards the counter. She heard the woman 'hmph' but ignored her, waiting for one of the men in front of her to move. Sophie had not meant to sound rude, but she really did not have time to get into a discussion.

Finally, a gentleman directly in front of her pulled reluctantly from the counter. He was younger, about fifteen, and wasn't looking where he was going. Sophie attempted to step aside to allow him passage but he collided with her.

"Oof!" He glanced down at his arm to find it covered with bits of straw from Sophie's hat. "Hey!" he complained. "Look what you did to my suit!"

"What _I_ did?" Sophie stared at him indignantly. Here was yet _another_ person who bumped into her and refused to take responsibility. "You mean what _you_ did!" she snapped. "Maybe you should watch where you're going next time!"

The young man was taken aback. He put his palms up in defense and stepped back. "Hey, now wait just a -"

"Sophie?" suddenly interrupted a feminine voice. "Oh, I'd recognize that tone anywhere! Let me see."

Sophie jerked her gaze around the young man's head to see a familiar and welcoming sight. Martha leaned on the counter in a space where the gentlemen had parted. Her lovely cheeks were flushed from running around to get orders. Her long fair hair, hair that Sophie remembered combing the tangles out of many a time, was piled elegantly atop her head, and wisps had come loose to frame her face.

Martha smiled at Sophie cheerily. "Sophie! I knew it was you!" she called over the noise. "What are you doing here so late?"

"Who's Sophie?" one of the taller gentleman asked.

"She's my sister!"

"_Your_ sister?"

An elder gentleman on Sophie's right leaned forward to peer between the two young ladies. Sophie noticed him look from her agitated eyes to Martha's large, eager gray ones. He nodded once.

"I can see the similarity."

"Well," said the taller gentleman again, clapping the increasingly mortified young man on the shoulder, "if she's Miss Martha's sister, then you had better start apologizing, Michael. You need all the help you can get if you want to court Cesari's beauty here, and potential in-laws would be a bad place to mess up!"

Poor Michael was flushing to the roots of his hair. Sophie almost forgot her agitation long enough to start feeling sorry for him when -

"Sorry," he mumbled in a clearly unrepentant tone. "But you got in my way, you know. Now, if you'll excuse me, someone's waiting for me outside!"

Sophie fairly gaped at the young man's retreating back. Well, if he had been hoping to gain her favour concerning Martha, then he certainly had gone the wrong way about it!

Sophie heard one of the gentlemen comment to his friend.

"That boy's probably going our there to meet his master, that Jenkins fellow."

"The Wizard? Tricky fellows, those wizards are."

"Yes, and especially this one. Poor Michael doesn't have a chance with the ladies as long as he's Wizard Jenkins's apprentice!" the first gentleman laughed.

Sophie felt a slender arm hook around hers. She turned to see Martha eyeing her crushed hat worriedly though she wore a smile on her face. Martha guided the two of them around the gentlemen and behind the counter.

"Come, Sophie," Martha said, the flush in her cheeks now very similar to Michael's. "Let's go somewhere private where we won't be disturbed."

The cries of protest from the gentlemen were nearly deafening.

"Oh, how cruel, darling! Even before I get my bread and pastries?"

"What, you're going on break for _her_? What about wonderful me, and the long hours I pleaded with you earli -?"

"Your sister can go first, but it's my turn next, right?"

Sophie felt her own cheeks redden at their bold remarks. She seriously considered reprimanding them, mood that she was in.

"Martha!" she muttered in astonishment. "Do you often deal with this?"

"In one way or another."

Martha's lips twitched in amusement as she leaned through the door way to the kitchen. Sophie watched curiously as her little sister cupped a hand to her mouth.

"Mrs. Primrose!" Martha called, elegantly dodging aside as a worker hurried past her with a tray of fresh loaves. "I'm retiring from the register now to take my break!"

Sophie heard several sharp intakes of breath. She glanced behind her to see several of the counter gentlemen staring with wide eyes.

"Ooh, lovely!" answered the deep, warbling voice of a woman. There was the sound of a wet towel slapping a counter. "It's far too hot in here! You go enjoy your break, dear. I'd be glad to manage the front for you!"

Sophie and Martha had to step back as Mrs. Primrose emerged from the kitchens. The woman was tall, in more ways than one, and she took up most of the doorway as she shuffled through it. Her gray-tinted hair was piled atop her head similarly to Martha's, with quite a few hairs out of place, and her broad face was pleasant as she smiled down at Sophie.

"Well, now, you must be that wonderful eldest sister we keep hearing about! Fancy that you would be the one to finally get Miss Martha on break. Ah, and there are my favorite customers!" Mrs. Primrose exclaimed, ambling up to the counter before Sophie could even give the customary greeting. Mrs. Primrose leaned on her pudgy elbows and waved a thick finger mischievously at the few remaining gentlemen, most of who were blanching whiter than Cesari's vanilla creme filling. Sophie thought she caught the woman giving her the slightest wink before proceeding to address Martha's admirers.

"All right, which one of you crumpets is first?"

The last glimpse Sophie had of the gentlemen was of them fumbling excuses as they struggled to squeeze through the crowd and towards the exit.


	5. Martha

**Touch-up on last chapter: Sophie finally makes it to the counter in Cesari's. Michael bumps into her (resulting in a not-so-pleasant meeting), a gentleman goads him into apologizing to her, and the chapter ends with Martha dragging Sophie to the back of the shop while Mrs. Primrose takes over.**

**A/N: Hello, everyone, and once again thank you for the reviews! It's fun to read them, not only because they give me your valuable input, but I get to see a bit your personality as well!**

**As for the reviews, I received quite a few comments about Michael being rude. Yes, he was, but there's a reason for that. Don't worry, I wasn't bashing him. :) **

**One last note: this will be the last "filler" chapter, you might say. This chapter will basically describe Sophie's family situation from a different perspective, which will hopefully help those of you who haven't read the book. In the next chapter, it's going to be a bit more intense, and characters from the movie will begin to emerge. **

**Disclaimer: ****Slooooooooowly, I turned... step by step... inch by inch . . . I turned to the man who asked me if I owned Howl's Moving Castle, and I said no!**

* * *

_"To Steal a Heart"_

**Chapter 4: Martha**

Martha was still laughing when she settled the two of them in a store room.

"Haha! Oh, I'm sorry, Sophie . . ." she said, sobering a bit when she saw her eldest sister's wearied and not very amused face. She laced her fingers together and began to twiddle her thumbs, a habit she had developed when she was a toddler. Sophie could always tell when she was lying because she stopped twiddling her thumbs. "It's always so funny when sweet Mrs. Primrose comes out, though," she continued, flashing Sophie a grin. "The boys act so terrified of her!"

Sophie wilted a little on the crate Martha had offered her, feeling her stiff facade slip as weariness crawled in and made a nest on her shoulders. Who knew May Day would be so full of complications? She did manage a small smile, though, at Martha's obvious amusement.

"I am glad for Mrs. Primrose, then," Sophie commented. "You seem to have a large number of admirers who need to be shooed away."

"Oh, they're not my admirers!" Martha laughed again. "At least, some of them aren't. One or two you saw tonight were my friends, and they were only teasing, trying to embarrass me."

Sophie wasn't quite sure what to think of this. She had never really had a gentleman as a friend, but if she did, she was certain he would never yell anything like those gentlemen at the counter. Her cheeks flushed at the thought.

Sophie carefully watched her sister's hands. "And the rude young man who ran into me? Is he 'just one of your friends,' too?"

Martha's thumbs stopped twiddling. She reached up a slender hand to pat her blonde hair, her features remaining completely neutral. "Oh, Michael? Of course he's only a friend! We don't . . . That is, we're not . . . I'm really sorry about how he treated you, by the way. He's not normally like that."

_'Of course,' _Sophie thought tucking away the observation for later. She was tempted to give Martha her opinion on the subject but decided against it. If there was any girl in Market Chipping who knew what she wanted, it was her little sister. Martha already had her heart set on having ten children! And, having always been thought the smartest of the three Hatter girls, Martha was sure to make the right decision when it came to choosing a husband.

Sophie's thoughts started wandering again when she noticed Martha eying her crushed hat. _'Not yet,' _her mind warned. She stalled, not quite ready to discuss her exhausting day.

"So how long have they known you're not really Lettie?" she practically blurted out.

Martha blinked at the outburst and frowned at her sister with new determination. "For about two weeks," she replied. "Now, Sophie, what happened to you? I don't think I've seen you this flustered since Lettie mistook your boots for decorations, sewed them to a hat, and sold it to a customer!"

Sophie frowned at the memory. The only boots she had specifically chosen as her own . . . tragically gone in a day at the cruel mistake of her sister. The memory put her in a fouler mood, and she found herself at a loss of words as she prepared to talk to Martha. Her eyes roved downwards dejectedly and lighted on her hat. She tugged it from under her arm and held it up, thinking its misfortune was a good place to begin.

"Someone stepped on my hat," Sophie sighed. The ruin of a head piece flopped over in her hand. More straw snowed to the floor.

Martha sighed and took the hat from her. "Oh, Sophie, I'm so sorry," she sympathized, examining it carefully. "I was wondering why you were running around the pastry shop with an indecently exposed head. Where on earth are you going to get a new hat?"

Sophie did not miss her sister's teasing tone. She quickly glanced up and - just as expected - met with a glint in Martha's gray eyes.

Sophie clucked her tongue. "Really, Martha, it wasn't at all that funny!"

"Oh, I know, I know," Martha replied with a straight face as she handed Sophie back her hat. "But it still doesn't explain why you snapped at one of my customers."

Sophie sighed heavily and gazed off to the side.

"What happened . . .?" her little sister prompted.

A small smile quirked the corner of Sophie's mouth. Once again, the eldest Hatter girl was being scolded as if she was the youngest. It should be the other way around, but today she didn't mind. It felt good to have someone to talk to, even if it involved discussing her problems.

"Well, actually, someone pushed me, which made me lose my hat," Sophie explained. "And then a gentleman stepped on it, hardly stopping to apologize, and then . . ." Sophie paused, her mind fumbling. She skipped her encounter with the stranger. "Well, then I arrived here and was bumped by a multitude of strangers - none which apologized, I can assure you. Your customer was practically asking for it by the time we collided."

"Asking for it?" Martha exclaimed, delighting in her sister's matter-of-fact manner. Her thumbs twiddled faster. "I think poor Michael has enough problems without having to ask for them!"

"Well, if he truly wanted to lessen his list, he should have avoided running into me today!" Sophie muttered, smoothing out her dress. Her thoughts slowly darkened. "As if my problems haven't bred enough already . . ."

"Oh, you're so silly sometimes, Sophie," Martha laughed. "You know, I've really missed you and our talks together. And especially your honesty." She paused at that and sent Sophie a pointed look. "Though actually, I don't believe you're being entirely honest with me. According to your story, the man crushed your hat and it was suddenly sunset, which is the only reason I can think of why you arrived here so late."

At the mention of the word "late," Sophie slowly felt discomfort pool up inside of her. The hat shop. Four o'clock. Henrietta . . .

"Oh . . ." Sophie said. Her shoulders bowed a little. "Um . . . There was an incident at the hat shop this afternoon . . ."

"Finally we're getting somewhere!" encouraged Martha. She waited.

The story first came out haltingly, reluctantly. Sophie briefly told of the generous customer who had purchased a cherry-rimmed hat. Then as the story progressed, she began to recall images of Henrietta's face - beautiful, selfish, haughty . . . Sophie's voice became taut as she summarized Henrietta's rudeness, and how she and Charlotte had never shown up after four o'clock.

Martha was silent when she finished.

"Sophie . . ." she said slowly, after a moment had passed. "How much do you like working in the shop?"

Sophie was startled. "Well, it's never really been a matter of liking, but -"

"Exactly," Martha interrupted. "That's exactly it!"

"What is?"

Martha leaned forward and started twiddling her thumbs. Her eyes studied Sophie earnestly. "Sophie, you know I like my job, right?" she asked.

Her eldest sister nodded almost immediately, thinking of Martha smiling behind the counter as she bantered with the gentlemen.

"But when Lettie worked here, she didn't," Martha continued thoughtfully, bringing up the middle Hatter girl. "Mother may have thought she was doing what was best for us when she first apprenticed Lettie to the bakery and me the witch Mrs. Fairfax, but she made her decisions by tradition. While I may be the youngest of three and thought to be the one to prosper most," she rolled her eyes, "I'd much rather be in the bakery. Lettie felt the same. According to tradition, she's never supposed to come to much, yet today we can find her learning spells under one of the best witches in the kingdom.

"And you, Sophie," the youngest Hatter girl continued in frustration, "you think you have to be stuck in the hat shop. You're all caught up in this "tradition" thing too, because you're convinced you'll never be successful since you're the eldest!"

"But that's just it," Sophie said calmly to the age-old argument. "I am the eldest. And that makes it my duty to supervise the hat shop now that Father has passed, and Fanny is so often gone."

Sophie picked at her hat and piled little bits of straw on her lap. A soft, wistful smile graced her face. "Besides," she continued, "I don't have anyone to switch places with. You and Lettie were able to use magic to look like each other and switch apprenticeships. When you're disguises wore off, everyone was okay. Who can I disguise myself as?" She quietly laughed and held up - "A hat? Maybe I can ride away on someone's head to seek my fortune. But even if I had magic, I'm certain that I'd never use it deceptively."

"Oh, Sophie, that's besides the point!" Martha exclaimed. "The point is that Lettie and I were unhappy and we did something about it. What about you, Sophie?" She placed a hand over her sister's. Sophie gradually stopped fiddling with her hat. "When are you going to do something for yourself? When are you going to follow your heart?"

Sophie felt the pressure of Martha's hand and was silent. Follow her heart? How was she supposed to do that, when she didn't know where it would lead her?

_*Knock, knock, knock*_

A light rapping sound came from the doorway.

The two young ladies turned towards the sound to see one of the workers leaning into the storeroom, a sheepish look on his face.

"Um . . . Mrs. Primrose didn't want to bother you, Miss Martha, especially since you have a visitor and all, but there's been a sudden influx of customers. Rowdy ones." He rubbed the back of his neck. "I -er, I mean, Mrs. Primrose, needs your help to calm them down."

"All right. Tell her I'll be there in two minutes."

The worker nodded and ducked out of there.

Martha sighed and rubbed her thumbs together. "Hurry, hurry, hurry . . . that's all we do around here. So . . ." She eyed Sophie. "Our conversation, we shall have to continue later. As for Henrietta, your hat shop girl . . . You need to tell Mother what happened, and hopefully she'll fire her or something. Is Mother home yet, by the way?"

"No, Fanny is still away on business," Sophie said in alarm, "but I can't tell Fanny, Martha, the shop's going out of business!"

"You don't need Henrietta to succeed, Sophie," Martha replied sternly. "You're lovely enough on your own to get customers, and besides - it takes wits, not just eyelashes, to run a business properly."

Sophie was a little stunned. As she sat there, Martha reached into one of her many apron pockets and pulled out a wrapped bundle. A twirl of blonde hair fell across her cheek as she handed it to her eldest sister.

"Here you go," she said with a smile. "I saved this for you. It's a little mushed, but it should still be good."

Sophie tugged back the wrapping and gasped in surprised delight.

"Oh, a vanilla crème cake! I haven't had one of these in ages!" She waved her sister over and embraced her with one arm, admiring the dessert in her other hand. Then she groaned.

"I forgot to buy you and Lettie May Day gifts!"

"It's all right," Martha laughed.

But Sophie wouldn't hear of it. She reached into her own pocket and pulled out the money that the man who had stepped on her hat had given her. Martha heard the jingle and crossed her arms.

"Absolutely not!" she exclaimed when Sophie offered her the money. "You can put those right back in your pocket. Besides, we both know that Mother doesn't give you a wage. Hold onto them, or better yet, go buy yourself something."

Sophie tried to argue, but soon she reluctantly put the money back. Martha pulled Sophie off the crate, and soon the two sisters walked arm in arm towards the door.

Sophie found herself thinking that May Day had turned out rather pleasant after all. True, she had began the day working with a not-so-pleasant young lady, and she needed a new hat, and an incredibly incorrigible yet charming stranger had taken the time to bother her that afternoon . . . Sophie's mind began to drift at the last thought.

She caught Martha giving her a sideways glance.

"What?"

Martha paused them in the doorway. "You know, Sophie . . . That's the third time that I've seen you get a faraway look. I get the feeling there's something you're not telling me . . ."

Sophie stiffened and felt heat creep up her cheeks. Too late did she realize it might have been best to act coy. "Oh! I wasn't, um . . ."

"Aha, I knew it!" Martha cried, placing her fists on her hips. "All right, Sophie, I'm not moving until you tell me. And it can't be all that bad, considering you appear to be amused despite yourself."

Sophie bit her lip. If she complied, there was not telling how Martha might react, especially if she was forced to go into detail. Sophie shuddered. To think she might have to confess that she yelled at a stranger! But if she refused to tell, then Martha would continue to press her . . .

Sophie sighed.

"Well . . . Promise not to tell Lettie?"

Martha nodded.

Sophie grimaced as her sister's thumbs remained motionless.

"Hmm. . . Well, this evening I was . . . That is, shortly before I arrived here, someone . . ." Sophie cleared her throat. "I was accosted."

She winced, waiting for Martha's response.

Silence.

Chancing a peek, she glanced to find her younger sister gaping at her. Martha drew in a tense, deep breath.

"Finally!" she exclaimed, looking eagerly into Sophie's face. "Was he handsome?"

Sophie was shocked. Deeply and utterly shocked.

"Martha Hatter!" she sputtered.

"What? I'm just saying!" Her sister giggled. She hooked her arm around Sophie's and marched them out the door and down the hall.

"That must have been an adventure you've been needing! How did you react? Did you ignore him? Did you scold him? You seemed rather peaked when you arrived here . . ." She glanced at Sophie's face. "Oh, you yelled at him."

"Martha!"

"Don't worry, I'll get the full story later," Martha said with confidence.

A roar of voices could be heard from the other end of the hall, and it rose in volume as they got closer. Sophie pulled more and more into herself with every step.

Mrs. Primrose was relieved to see Martha, as were many of the large male customers on the opposite side of the counter.

Martha flashed them all a smile before turning to embrace Sophie. "Now are you sure you'll be all right?"

Sophie held her hat close to herself and nodded. She perceived that her little sister was becoming increasingly distracted and decided it was time to go. She turned to leave.

"Watch out for wizards!" she heard Martha yell after her she plunged through the crowd.

_'So they all keep telling me.'_


	6. The Night Walk

******Touch-up on last chapter: Sophie and her sister, Martha, have a little heart-to-heart chat, Sophie mentions that a blonde stranger accosted her (which strangely over-joys Martha), and the chapter ends with Sophie finally exiting Cesari's.**

**Summary: Sophie thought it was going to be just a normal May Day, but she didn't bargain on the broken promises, a flirtatious stranger, and a deal she can't seem to resist . . . (just a reminder since the last part will soon be revealed :)**

**A/N: You all have my gratitude! This chapter is more intense than any of my previous ones, but don't worry - the "happy" isn't gone. **

**Don't forget to tell me what you think. Enjoy!**

**Disclaimer: If Howl's Moving Castle was mine, Calcifer would be heating water for _my_ bath.**

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_"To Steal a Heart"_

**Chapter 5: The Night Walk **

Nightfall had hung its hat on Market Chipping by the time Sophie Hatter stepped out of Cesari's.

She stood in shock, not knowing that time had passed so quickly. Then she wished that she had brought a shawl. The air was chilly. The thick warmth of the pastry shop was already uncurling from her limbs as she stepped away from Cesari's and scuttled towards home.

Sophie wrapped her arms around herself and glanced around as she traveled, guiding on the lamps that lined the streets. Overhead, the stars were obscured by a thick haze, which made Sophie feel sheltered yet very alone. It also made her feel that something was different about this early night. There was sinister ingredient in the damp chill.

The spot where Sophie had first seen the blonde stranger was empty. As she passed it, she noted how it appeared a mysterious part of Market Square, half shrouded and half lit by lamplight as it was. For a moment, she could almost picture the blonde stranger standing there with his teeth shining white in a cat-like smile.

Sophie felt her wrist tingle, and she shivered. She hurried across Market Square, feeling her thick braid thump against her back where his gaze might rest if he were there.

At the edge of the square she stopped.

Men, several men, were traveling back and forth across the street she was planning to take. Most of them appeared to be harmless, just workers back from the work houses and shops out to enjoy the last bit of May Day festivities. She spotted a couple of soldiers off-duty, and a watchman strolled across the well-used pavement with an eye on everyone.

It was the sailors that worried her. There appeared to be a lot of them visiting from the nearby Porthaven. They were usually a fun-loving and boisterous kind of people, but the reputation of several sailors in the last few years had tarnished the reputation of all. It was not in Sophie's best interest to go anywhere near them. The young woman of eighteen got a sick feeling as she scanned men leaning against the walls flanking the street, staring at any passersby. Walking down that street would be similar to passing through the gauntlet.

Sophie stepped back and glanced around. There should be a detour nearby . . .

She hedged around a slow-moving vendor with his cart, avoided looking at an approaching group of gentlemen, and ducked into a side street.

The noises of Market Square dulled, then almost faded into the background. Her boots clicked dully against the cool stone ground, echoing against the close-pressing buildings. She heard the gentle tinkle of a wind chime from some distant doorway. For a moment, Sophie relaxed, feeling a bit ridiculous for panicking into going another route.

"Sophie Hatter, you _could_ have taken the main street," she whispered to herself, shaking her head. Her voice was muffled in the thickening air. "After all, _no one _ever notices _you_, so why would they . . ." Her words faltered.

It started like a knot. A pinch in her stomach that slowly grew even as it tightened. But then, with aggressive speed, it transformed into what could only be described as dread.

The dread took the mannerisms of a snake, curling in the core of her belly and slithering around with every step she took. Sophie's brow furrowed with this fresh bout of anxiety as she peered into the murkiness. _'But . . . I didn't take the main street where those men are!'_ she tried to reason with herself, and her fingers tightened along the brim of her hat. So why, then, did she feel like she was going to be sick?

Further ahead on the right, there was a single lantern. It was hanging diligently over the door of a jewelry store, a place Sophie had seen on occasion but never visited. A long mirror-like window stood post in the store's outer wall.

Sophie almost stopped breathing when she saw the shape of a man in the shadows. He appeared to be hunched over and was examining the window with his hands. Though his back was turned towards her, Sophie stumbled as close to the opposing wall as possible. Her breath came back - quickened. Just as she was passing him, her dread took a sharper twist, and she was forced to a standstill as the sick feeling threatened to turn her stomach inside-out.

_'I don't understand!'_ she thought as she held her fist to her mouth. She told herself to move, but her legs refused to obey. _'Why do I feel like this?'_

The shadow man stiffened. Slowly, he turned around, in an odd constricted way, as if his waist down was frozen in place. The faint fingers of lamplight that managed to reach him illuminated angles of his purple suit and pale yellow vest. The edges of an orange bow-tie could be seen on his collar, and a top hat of lavender balanced upon his head. But it was not pastel colors and bow ties that had Sophie frozen in place.

Sophie's eyes widened when the shadow man leaned closer to peer at her.

On his face, he wore a white half-mask. Below that, there were no visible defined details: no mouth, no chin . . . His eyes were hidden behind the mask like two shifting pools of tar; they shuddered and scanned her.

Sophie shrank against the wall.

"What do you want?" she heard herself say for a second time that day. Her voice came out high-pitched and restricted. She sounded like a strangled cat.

The shadow man jerked back at the sound. His left arm quivered, and suddenly he began to swell. Arms and legs and chest - expanding like hot air balloons!

Sophie recoiled in horror as his limbs started bubbling like oil, twisting and convulsing. Black goop oozed out all over him and - wait, no, he _was_ the goop! The blob man's new and deformed body burst out of his suit as he shot up to loom darkly over Sophie.

In the next second he was lunging for her.

A scream tore from Sophie's throat. She ducked under the blob man just in time for him to splatter against the wall behind her. Her sweaty palms snatched up her skirts from under her pounding heels, and she ran. Air whooshed past her as the blob man recovered and chased after her. Further and further they went down the side street. Sophie's heart battered madly in her chest. Her frantic gray eyes looked wildly ahead into the darkness as she rushed on.

Sophie felt something cold, wet, and slimy touch her neck. It slid around her braid and yanked her backwards towards the pavement. She tried to turn in mid-air and landed hard, scraping her knee and skinning her palms. She quickly rolled on her back and threw her hands up in defense.

"Leave me alone, leave me alone, leave me _alone!!" _she yelled, feeling adrenaline, fear, and something else built-up inside spill out through those words.

The blob man recoiled, strangely backing down for a second. It gave Sophie time to jerk herself to her feet and start running again, but she heard a sickening sludgy sound as he picked up pursuit with renewed vigor.

She had to shake him from her trail. Rapidly, she pivoted on her heel and took a right. Her clumsiness briefly pitched her into a wall. Then she went left, took another right, went left again . . . The sounds of her pursuer faded further into the distance until all Sophie could hear was her own panicked and heavy breathing.

She eventually slowed to a brisk walk but looked constantly behind her, a palm to her chest as she attempted to calm her heaving lungs. There was a stitch in her side. Her head hurt; it pounded. Her braid had unraveled after the creature had grabbed it and it hung in a wavy mass past her shoulders. She reached up a clammy, shaky hand to push it back.

It was amazing that she hadn't passed a single person in the back alleyways other than the blob man, but the thought put even more trepidation in her. Warily she glanced at every shadow. She turned down another street, the only one she could see . . . and was met by thick darkness.

Sophie turned back around and froze. The blob man was coming her way! Or at least, another one like him. This one was feeling and sniffing his way along the walls, his purple tux glowing slightly from another lamp. He was rounder than the other one; if possible, he even had a whiter mask. When the second blob man saw her, he started to bubble.

"Not again," Sophie whispered. Her breath hitched in her throat. She turned on her heel and plunged down the dark alleyway as she heard it launch from the wall.

The second time was harder than the first. Sophie had already given the first run almost all that she had, not to mention the long and tiring May Day had taken its toll. Fear and adrenaline were her driving force. But Sophie had a feeling it might not be enough to outrun her pursuer, who, although slower than the first blob man, still had speed and purpose enough to be close on her heels.

"Drat!" Sophie muttered between gasps. "I . . . should have . . . made some time . . . for. . . exercise… between… making all… those _hats!!"_

And not to mention it was nearly coal black in that alleyway. There were no lamps, no moonlight. Sophie kept bumping into walls and tripping as she struggled to find a way out of that street.

Sophie ran past what she thought was a wall when her peripheral caught sight of a glow. There, some light! _People!_

She dashed towards it in desperation. Her heels slammed into the cobblestones as she sensed the blob man getting closer. Once again, her heart jerked in her chest as something cold and wet touched one of her wrists swinging behind her . . .

Sophie rounded the corner towards the light and rammed smack-dab into a large, hard, warm chest. Big rough hands shot up to steady her as she stumbled back.

"Whoah, easy there, lass!" boomed a surprised yet amused voice of a man. Sophie jerked her head back around to see if the blob man had caught up, but a palm cupped her cheek and forced her gaze back to the front. She felt uneasy and disoriented, as if the arms of this "savior" weren't as safe as she hoped.

It took a moment for her startled gray eyes to focus upon the clean-shaven face in front of her. The large man grinned.

"Well, lookee' here, mate, it seems I've caught a little mouse!"

A second man, even taller than the first, leaned around his shoulder and flicked his gaze up and down Sophie's frame.

"Did you now?"

Sophie glanced back and forth between them with a suddenly painfully clear mind. In a second, she took in the kerchiefs around their necks, their longer hair in loose ponytails, the tattoo on one of their arms, and the blue button-up togs.

_'Drat,' _Sophie muttered in her mind. _'Sailors.'_


	7. Unexpected Intervention

**Touch-up on last chapter: Sophie is chased by blob men down a series of back-streets and runs into two sailors.**

**A/N: Thanks to you all for your time and support of this silly little fanfiction story. (bows) Sorry it took so long. Sometimes I confuse myself with all of the details. I hope you enjoy this chapter! **

**Disclaimer: Hey, look! The owner of Howl's Moving Castle who is _not_ me. I think I'll go to my little corner and sulk now.  


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_"To Steal a Heart"_**  
**

**Chapter 6: Unexpecte****d Interve****n****tion  
**

Sophie only had a moment to chide her stupidity when the sailor, whose palm was cupping her face, stroked her cheek with his thumb. Sophie instinctively slapped his hand away.

"Ho, ho, you've got a live one there!" chuckled the second sailor, watching as Sophie hastily disengaged herself from the arm still encircling her waist. She stumbled a few feet back to put distance between them and gingerly touched her stinging palms together. They had been scraped earlier when the blob man had pulled her down.

Her body began to tremble. The shaking was so slight, however, the sailors could not detect it in the dark. But Sophie felt weak, from the exertion of the run or fear, she did not know. She felt a bit like she was overreacting, but she was unsure who she would rather face: these sailors or the blob men.

The first sailor, the one Sophie had slapped, lifted his reddening hand and glanced at his partner in mock distress.

"I don't believe it, mate. My first rejectin' . . . from a mouse!"

The second sailor snorted. "What're you talkin' about? You was rejected the second your mum looked at 'cha."

The first sailor winced. "Ouch, mate. You're beastly."

Sophie risked another glance behind for possible escape when there was a light smacking sound. The first sailor had placed a broad, uninjured hand on the wall above her, and he now leaned forward with a suggestiveness in his smile.

"So, little mouse . . ." he drawled. "Are you lookin' for somethin'? You seemed in a right hurry when you first bumped into me . . ."

"N-No!" the eldest Hatter burst out. She quickly averted her eyes and stared at the ground.

_'Avoid eye contact, avoid eye contact.'_

"I-I mean yes, I'm looking for something," she muttered with quiet conviction, subconsciously emphasizing the proper pronunciation of her words. Her stuttering, however, she winced at. "And . . . I _am _in a hurry."

"She really_ is_ a little mouse!" the second sailor exclaimed, amused at her reluctance, and he leaned down to get a better look at her shadowed face. The first sailor smiled thoughtfully at the top of her head.

"Aye . . . How old are you, anyhow? You live in this town?"

"Let me pass!"

"Obviously not interested in you, mate . . ." chortled the second sailor.

The first sailor sighed in amused exasperation. "Robert, you green sprog, how'm I supposed to practice my wooin' when you keep discouragin' her? An' back away there. I think you're scarin' the lass with that bushy upper lip of yours."

"My 'stache?"

Sophie was extremely uncomfortable with this situation. Anxiously, sucking in a mouthful of air, Sophie mentally prepared herself to plead a final time -

"Well, mayhaps she's cuter when she's scared."

Sophie's air came out in a rush. Cuter? They found her obvious discomfort _cute_? Sophie felt a surge of indignation. Her chin lifted with a snap and her hair tumbled over her shoulders -

_'My hair.'_ Sophie's eyes widened. She blanched as the realization came to her like a whisp of unreality.

Her hair was down. Unbraided by the blob monster. Indecently exposed . . . Sophie's cheeks reddened drastically in the lamplight, and she shrunk into herself as quickly as she had straightened. _'Why, they m-must think I'm some sort of . . . th-that I-I'm?'_

"Pay no attention to that obnoxious cad," rumbled the first sailor from unexpectedly at her elbow. "How about I make it up ta' you with a nice mug o' grog, little lass? It always hits the spot."

"Now, just who's the cad?" scoffed Robert. "Ladies don't drink grog, Jim. It's a proper cup o' tea she'll be wantin' at this late hour. What do you say, mousie?" he demanded as he reached for her other arm.

A cool hand slid over Sophie's rigid shoulder.

Its touch was light, elegantly authoritative, with a strong hint of possessiveness. In that touch, Sophie suddenly felt free from the sailors. It gave her hope that this bewildering game of life she had been playing all day was finally going to get some relief.

And a mere moment after that touch, she was unexpectedly filled with a fear and nauseating dread ten times more intense than anything she had felt with the blob men. Every nerve in her body tensed like stitches tightened by a needle. Before she could collapse on the ground, before her skin could break out in a cold sweat, the owner of the hand spoke. Sophie's mind and insides instantly calmed as if the prior emotions had never been roused.

"There you are, sweetheart," the visitor soothed in rich timbre. "Sorry I'm late. I've been looking _everywhere_ for you."

Startled, the sailors released Sophie. The hand lifted briefly from her shoulder as the three of them turned to face this newcomer.

Sophie glanced up at the stranger and locked eyes. Her heart skipped a beat in her chest when she saw who it was.

A tall woman in black gazed back down at Sophie.

. . . . . . . . .

Several streets away, in a place forsaken by natural moonlight, the blonde stranger found himself hovering outside the jewelry shop for a second time that day. The shop's broad, mirror-like window was still and submissive like before. But the blonde was not looking at his reflection. Rather, he was studying the black goop splattered against the glass.

_'So . . ._ _She knows I came here.'_ An unsteady breeze swept hair in his face, but he ignored it.

"There's more all over this wall," someone commented from behind him. "It's almost like they were attacking something."

The blonde stranger weighed this observation in his mind before smoothly turning around. He watched his younger companion, shoulders tense from anxiety, rub his hand across his night-dampened hair.

"But this doesn't make sense," the younger man exclaimed, swiveling to face him. "I thought we had at least three more months. Why is she here? How could she have found us so soon?"

The blonde stranger was also troubled, troubled because he knew. It wasn't often that he made mistakes - or at least what he considered were mistakes - but this one could procure some serious consequences. His younger companion deserved to know how the blob men might have tracked them. Now he just had to find a way to make it sound like he was innocent.

He slipped off the harlequin hat and fingered the well-crafted brim. "We'll make this a brief lesson for the night," he said with a half-smile.

The younger man looked exasperated, as if to say, "Do we really have time for this?" but remained silent as the older man explained.

"Did you know that your magic is unique? All magicians have unique magic." He held up a hand. "Like fingerprints. Though most everyone has them, no one else in the world has fingerprints like mine. Magic is the same way. Think of it as everyone's magic having a different scent."

"Scent?" the younger man asked quizzically. "You mean like hyacinths?"

The blonde stranger stopped fiddling and arched a brow.

Even in the dark, the younger man understood that expression. "Ah . . . Sorry, master. Never mind. I think I understand." He rubbed his eyes. "Please . . . continue."

There was the sound of activity from a nearby street. The blonde stranger's ears perked up even as he studied his weary apprentice. Three fruitless days of intense searching in Market Chipping had really drained him. Now that _she_ was here, it was going to be even harder to search in town.

"You see -" The blonde stranger paused as more sounds from another street added to the first. "Basically, Michael," he continued gently to his apprentice, "I believe she's finally managed to discern my magic's 'scent' from all of the others. Traces of our magic can actually linger on nearby objects after we perform spells. That's how she might have tracked us." He slipped the harlequin hat back on his head, suddenly feeling taller. He really liked this new hat.

"As I've shown you, I normally perform a small masking spell that covers my magic's scent before creating other spells away from home, but one of them must have slipped."

Two of them, actually. What he did not want to confess was his uncovered use of magic earlier that day: one impulsive spell to trip that silly mouse-girl so he could catch her, the other to improve a slight though probably imaginary imperfection he thought he had seen in his reflection. Necessary sacrifices, of course, but ill-timed.

Abruptly, a loud sludgy, sucking noise sounded from close around the bend of their street. Michael - the curt young man Sophie had bumped into at Cesari's and the blonde stranger's apprentice - stiffened in dismay.

"Master, was that -?"

"The April twenty-seventh incantation."

" . . . What?"

"April twenty-seventh," the blonde stranger repeated calmly. He moved to stand next to his apprentice.

"Oh, four days ago. Um, right. Was it the air spell . . . ?"

"Hurry, Michael."

"Yes, master, I'm trying!" The fifteen-year old squinted his eyes shut and began chanting under his breath.

Seconds later, a slight air current whirled up beneath their feet to form a small funnel, which quickly twisted around them and gained intensity with Michael's every utterance. The blonde "master" held onto his hat with one hand as his jacket-coat whipped about in the wind. A gust, violent in its brevity, tried to urge him off-balance. He stood firm, but glanced at his apprentice, whose brow was furrowed tightly in his concentration.

_'We'll need to work on control,'_ the blonde stranger thought. He'd rarely interrupt a spell to give correction.

A mysterious smile crept to his lips when he glanced once more down the narrow street, and as the top hat and purple sleeve of a blob man slithered around the corner, the blonde stranger and his apprentice vanished in a whirl of air.

"Oof!"

Michael winced as he landed on his rump, but he avoided the temptation to rub the sore spot, having been trained better. Besides, he was in the presence of one more sensitive than most ladies. Through the dark, he discerned the shape of his master crouching just a few feet away, who had apparently landed unscathed. He was peering over the roof's edge into hazy darkness below. It was just like him, to be so indifferent after a powerful spell.

Wait . . . they were on a roof.

Michael sighed in frustration. _"Pastries_," he mumbled. He had hoped that transportation spell would land them, oh, somewhere on the ground.

He discovered it was worse than he expected after walking carefully across the tiles of the flattish roof and joining his master's side. They were on top . . . of the jewelry shop. The funnel had not even carried them a _block_. Looking down into the street, though, immediately distracted Michael from his failure.

The side-street was filled with blob men. In the fuzzy lamplight, even fuzzier from twenty feet up, it looked as if there was a thin purple stream splotted with black oil. The "stream" sporadically swelled and rippled like a snake.

Michael's eyes grew wide. "That's a lot of blob men."

"At least thirteen," his master whispered very quietly back.

Michael glanced at him and noticed a particular gleam in his blue-green eyes. The apprentice leaned back warily and set his mouth.

"Master H- Master Jenkins."

The blonde stranger looked at him sharply. Michael stared right back with almost pleading in his expression. "Master," he whispered, "what are you planning to do?"

The esteemed Master Jenkins, the same wizard from Porthaven who had been sighed over that morning by hat shop girls, tensed. Michael knew he was trying to come to a decision. His master usually avoided uncomfortable situations, but for some odd reason this one . . . this one seemed to intrigue him.

His gaze flicked over to Michael. Finally, he heaved a hushed yet dramatic sigh.

". . . We're leaving tonight."

"What? But -"

"Michael," Master Jenkins interrupted. His voice was so quiet, the apprentice had to strain to hear. "I can't risk _her_ finding us. She knows what I look like. She finally has my scent, after all these years." He smirked. "Out of every woman I ever pursued, she's certainly been the most intent after my heart."

"Yes, but . . ."

"But what?"

Michael hesitated. He did not want to leave Market Chipping yet, but for selfish reasons, not because their search had been thus far unsuccessful. Martha . . . He blushed. Three days of sporadically seeing her was not enough. If they left now, there was a chance he may never get to see her again. However, his master's safety was certainly more important than any feelings he had. Michael shook his head briefly, and perhaps his heart.

"Ah, never mind. Let's go, Master, before the blob men discover we're here."

"Yes."

Master Jenkins gracefully stood. Michael was certain that had there been moonlight, his master's silhouette would have been beautiful and terrible to behold, like a heartless god more than a man. The blonde man tugged his harlequin jacket more securely over his shoulders and turned to leave. Unexpectedly, he stopped.

"Master?" Michael followed the older man's gaze over the edge of the roof. Something plate-sized and pale yellow was being passed among the blob men. Michael furrowed his brow in puzzlement and asked what it was.

". . . A crushed hat."

Michael looked at him.

His master's expression was closed, indecipherable as an ancient spell. _'Does the hat hold any meaning to him?'_ he wondered. It was horrible to think the blob men might have caught someone.

"Come," Master Jenkins ordered. He turned his back and walked easily towards the peak of the roof. "Getting back should be interesting, since I can't risk using my magic . . ."

Michael shrugged off any unfinished thoughts and followed. "Interesting" was certainly the right word for it, since he the apprentice was likely going to be responsible for getting them home. He just hoped his choices that night would not put them in any more danger.


	8. The Deal

**A/N****: Well then... I just realized that I haven't taken the time to properly thank my editors for their help. After all of my badgering, they still kindly obliged me! :D So thanks to beyond the shadows, rose of light, and Dad: beyond the shadows for taking on the rough draft (involving **_**much**_** highlighting), rose of light for her curtness (which really sting sometimes), and Dad for pointing out every obvious thing we missed and giving me great advice. You guys are awesome. **

**And thanks to all of you, who are reading this! **

**Summary****: Sophie thought it was going to be just a normal May Day, but she didn't bargain on the broken promises, a flirtatious stranger, and **_**a deal **_**she can't seem to resist...**

**Re-Cap****: The sailors began to drag Sophie off when a tall visitor in black appeared. Meanwhile, in a street not too far away, the blonde stranger examined the mess left behind by the blob men. He was finally revealed (though most of you already knew it) as Sorcerer Jenkins. He and Michael, his apprentice, teleported to a roof when they heard blob men coming, and Jenkins decided to leave Market Chipping. **

**Disclaimer****: My own castle is safe on the ground, thank you. I do not own Howl's Moving Castle.

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_"To Steal a Heart"_

**Chapter 7: The Deal**

Sophie felt the woman's gaze shift from her to the sailors. Had she been able to see through the dark or under the shadows of the visitor's hat, Sophie might have observed that the woman's eyes were not looking at the eyes of the sailors. No, her gaze was fixed on their chests.

The sailors flinched at the odd hunger they saw in the visitor's expression, as if she could see what pumped beyond their blue togs and thick layers of muscle. The woman shook her head briefly, and gave a slight wave of her hand. The uncomfortable moment passed; the sailors were now as at ease as Sophie.

The woman's ruby lips smiled.

"Come now, gentlemen, and introduce yourselves. I want to know the names of those who would accost an innocent young lady."

"Now now, miss - er, _dearest_ Madame," the first sailor laughed apologetically. "Let's not be hasty. I'm loathe to even be thinkin' about contradictin' a lady, 'specially one as fine as yerself. But no accostin' was done here, I can assure yeh."

"Harhar, of course not. Far from it, actually!" chuckled the second sailor. He lost confidence when the woman's shrouded head angled impassively towards him. "Well, you see... This little lady here was, er... She's - She's, um -"

"His sister," the first sailor cut in smoothly. "Cute little thing, ain't she? Practic'ly a niece to meh."

Sophie went rigid when he patted her shoulder. While she was strangely at ease with the visitor, she had _not_ gained a sudden like nor trust for the sailors. And such a blatant lie he had told!

Flinching away from his touch, Sophie was startled when his hand brushed past her and offered a _handshake_ to the lady. '_How improper!' _she couldn't help but think.

"The name's James," he said coyly, adding with a wink, "but you can call me Jim."

The woman gazed at the proffered paw but did not accept it.

The second sailor reached behind Sophie and nudged him sharply.

"Matey!" he hissed under his breath.

"What?"

"...Raise yer pinky!"

The first sailor became impressively still. All eyes gravitated towards him. After a moment, he shifted. Subtly, the little digit lifted.

The visitor placed her hand in the sailor's with vaguely concealed amusement. Sophie watched the awkward handshake, which consisted of a single delicate yet stiff up-and-down motion. She did not observe the sailor's admiring wince as he pulled away.

"Gentlemen, I am afraid I have an imposing request of you," said the woman, adjusting her glove as she leaned into the nearby lamplight. Sophie could now see that the woman was wearing what appeared to be a large sable coat, with equally dark fur draped over her shoulders. A broad hat of the same material rested on her head, and Sophie glimpsed strawberry curls tucked up beneath it.

"My young friend and I were feeling rather lost down these dark and... _lonely_ alleyways," the woman's voice intoned, as rich and smooth as chocolate and honey. The sailors liked this new development and decided to look as appealing and able-bodied as possible, straightening as she added, "Would you be dears and escort us safely back to the main street?"

"But Madame -" Sophie protested in surprise, moving towards the woman when the second sailor reached for her.

"Don't worry, my lady, you can count on us," Jim winked.

The tall woman ignored his offered arm and instead put her hand on Sophie's shoulder, and the Hatter girl briefly trembled under her touch. The nausea again...

The visitor allowed the one hand to rest on Sophie but swished the other flirtatiously at the sailors.

"No no, handsomes, you don't need to _personally_ escort two shy things such as ourselves. I thought, rather, that you might scout ahead of us. Who knows what could come out of that darkness."

"Fine sea beasts such as _ourselves _can defend from _any _position..."

"Perhaps. But we are on land. Go now."

Sophie watched in astonishment as the sailors shrugged and complied, sauntering ahead with smug grins on their faces. Earlier, they had completely ignored her plea for space. This woman had them under her sway in mere seconds.

The woman linked her arm through Sophie's. They began to trail after their "scouts."

A few moments passed. The four of them rounded a street corner, and Sophie's anxiety grew. What if the sailors did not take them where they said they would?

The tall woman sensed her tension.

"Just wait," she whispered, placing a polished fingernail conspiratorially to the shadow of her lips.

Seconds later, the first sailor turned to look at them with a teasing smirk.

"Dear me, I 'ope you aren't missin' us too badly, ladies, bein' as lonely as you are."

"The hole in my chest is positively aching," the tall woman replied. She gave that subtle wave of her hand again. The sailor turned back around.

Then something peculiar happened.

The sailor's straightened their backs, making them look more like soldiers than sailors, and they began to march in step down the street. Sophie could not understand it. Were they purposefully making a mockery of themselves? Then the woman used her link with Sophie's arm to steer the two of them down a different street.

"But... but what if they realize we're missing?" was all the bewildered Hatter girl could say. Now she could hear their colorful curses in the distance.

"We'll be long gone by then," the woman stated almost unpleasantly. It was a victory, and she seemed to like it. Sophie heard her sigh five steps later. "It's a pity, though. They had such strong chests..."

It was a strange comment to Sophie, but then again, lots of odd happenings had decided to infiltrate her life that May Day. A crushed hat, a beautiful man, rude customers at Cesari's, sailors... The excitement was almost too much for Sophie. She had spent her entire life in a simple hat shop, where customers and gossip had been the most exciting things. Well, those and her day dreaming, that is.

"Madame," Sophie blurted after a moment, remembering something when the woman quickened her steps and dragged them into inkier darkness. "Madame, there's something I think you should know."

"Hmm, what is it?" The fine woman seemed occupied. Something else was on her mind.

"Before the sailors came I was attacked." Sophie paused until she had the woman's attention. "Strange men chased me who were made of... Well, made of goo. And they weren't even remotely friendly. I think we should be careful; they could still be out here!"

"Made of goo, you say? And you escaped?"

The visitor stopped abruptly. Her chin lifted and she seemed to assess Sophie in a new perspective. Sophie took this time to tightly braid her hair again, nervously working through the knots as she listened for signs of the blob men or the sailors. She wondered how in Ingary she was going to get home. Maybe an officer could escort them.

"I was hoping to transport us in my carriage, but I don't believe you'd like my horses." The tall woman tilted her fine head. "It's too damp out here. Where do you live?" she asked suddenly.

Sophie answered her almost without thinking. To her confusion, slight shock registered on the woman's face at her answer. "How ironic." Then the woman's expression cleared, and she waved her hand and stepped forward...

Sophie found herself blinking up at her hat shop.

Sophie was always alert when she traveled through Market Chipping, even if accompanied by a refined, powerful woman. But the walk there had passed in a blur. The journey went by in half the time it usually took her, and they did not even board the tram. Sophie vaguely remembered turning down various side-streets and passing under stone archways. Now home, she realized with a start that she was unexplainably weary. The weight of the day crashing down on her?

The tall woman whisked the two of them up the familiar stone steps, with the old curving black metal handrails, and through the front door, opening it before Sophie had time to even stop and retrieve her key. Sophie glanced back in surprise as the door closed behind them.

"I thought I had locked that..."

The woman released her and began to wander around the shop. Sophie was thankful that she had left a few lamps lit as she looked around for signs of robbery. Everything appeared to be where she had left it. Her mouth frowned when she lit the other lamps and shook out the small flame on her match stick. Perhaps Henrietta had come back while she was in the market. It would be just like her, leaving the door unlocked.

_'At least the strongbox is untouched.'_ Yet Sophie still felt uneasy.

She had a hidden suspicion that it was because of the woman.

Since her arrival, the tall woman had paced back and forth between hats, tilting up this one or that with curiosity, indifferent interest, and sometimes distaste. Sophie already knew nothing here would suit her. Nothing was fine enough. The woman's hat had been one of the first things the Hatter had noticed during her rescue. Accompanying her rich sable clothing, the rim of her ostentatious hat glistened with fur, and a real ostrich plume curled around the top like a serpent.

_'Now honestly, Sophie,_' she scolded herself, feeling bad for having any ill will towards the woman. _'You should just be grateful she rescued you. It's remarkable that a woman of her station paid any attention to you at all! Who knows where you'd be otherwise..._' She shuddered. _'Besides, it doesn't make you friends. She's likely in business-mode anyways.'_

The tall woman slowly placed a hat back on its rack - it was the silly tangerine-coloured one Sophie thought would suit Fanny - and faced Sophie. She was easier to see in the brighter setting. Her face was beautiful, though carefully so. Under her coat, the woman's figure was tall and slender, and her dress neckline scooped low under pale neck and collar bone. Sophie blushed and thought of her own strict high collar. She now understood why those sailors were so eager to please this visitor.

Sophie had glanced at herself in the hat shop's prize tri-fold mirror earlier when lighting the lamps. Her gray eyes had looked large in her face, her ginger hair frazzled despite her scalp-tight braid. Stress and exhaustion had shadowed her features. Yes, she could definitely see why she had been "mouse" and the woman "dearest lady."

The woman settled herself into one of their green upholstered guest chairs and crossed her ankles, intertwining her gloved fingers together.

"Yes, it is a bit late, isn't it?" she commented, seeing Sophie glance at the shop clock. Sophie became flustered with herself. She dropped into a curtsy and briefly dipped her head.

"Madame, I just want to thank you for your kindness tonight. You rescued me from those men! Please, take as much time as you like."

"Those sailors _were _a bit boorish, weren't they?" the woman drawled thoughtfully. She slid her fingers out of her glove and started to tug it off, then thought better of it. A light kindled in her pale blue eyes. "I prefer certain men with class. A bit on the wild side, yet charming and elegant." She glanced around the shop, seeming to weigh something in her mind. Sophie's unease became stronger.

"Miss Hatter..." the tall woman said finally. Her gaze was determined. "Miss Hatter, I would like to make a special order."

Sophie allowed herself a luxury moment to blink. Not quite what she had expected. The woman had looked ready to buy the place and rent it out to a florist or a butcher.

"O-Of course, Madame. We have certainly done those from time to time." Sophie attempted to collect herself as she fetched a sheet of parchment and a quill. _'I wonder, should I let her pay for this? After all, she did me a great favor.'_

The parchment had the day's earnings scribbled on one side. She flipped it over and dipped the quill into the ink well. "What did you have in mind, Madame?" Finally, some stability. This was her element.

"... A heart."

Sophie nodded to herself. All right... Several clients had indulged in such heart patterns in the past. Sophie made a brief note.

"Our shop prides itself for having a variety of methods applicable to a heart pattern. Would you like a heart-shaped brim? I can show you some samples. And we can embroider hearts into any material you choose, for which we have tens of colors, and even the materials themselves can be shaped into -"

"Thank you, Miss Hatter, I am well aware of my options," the woman interjected. Her words were curt. "I want but one heart."

Sophie's smooth brow furrowed. She had said too much, not allowing the customer to give her idea first. However, one heart? Did the woman mean for the actual hat, round and all, to be heart-shaped? It could be done, but that meant going to the shed and re-shaping the molds...

"Sophie." The woman leaned forward in her chair and stared with a hint of madness. "The heart I need is not something you can make."

Sophie was startled when she looked into the woman's eyes. The glassiness was remarkably similar to the blonde stranger's eyes from the market place. And the woman's words so confused her that she failed to notice she had been addressed by her first name.

"I... I'm afraid I don't understand..."

The woman opened her mouth and softly chuckled, her voice deep and as rich as when she had first spoken in the alleyway. Slowly, she stood from her chair. Sophie was reminded of how tall she was. The woman's imposing black figure strolled to the center of the room, where she paused, lifting an elegant finger and pointing it towards a candle waving ten feet away.

"Have you ever thought about magic, dear Sophie?"

The little flame on the candle began to swell, rounding like a goblet and glowing brighter as it went. Its bright orange pigment fleetly heightened to a yellow, when abruptly the little flame plunged into a deep shade of green. Blue, violet, red, orange again... It flashed through all colors of a rainbow before Sophie found herself staring at a slender pillar of black fire, horridly smoldering and nearly two feet tall. It whiffed out.

Sophie gasped when paper birds burst out of the dark candle holder without warning. They fluttered shakily in the tense hat shop air, in a little school house line towards the woman. Her manicured hands lifted towards them in almost a maternal gesture. When all of the birds had settled on her palms, the woman crushed them into fragments and shook them like a linen sheet. A shimmering cloth materialized in her fists and tumbled down into a gown.

The fine visitor laughed at the stunned expression on Sophie's face.

"Carnival tricks really," she smirked. The silky sapphire gown dissipated into silver dust, and the woman's amusement shortly followed. "They're all I've been reduced to."

"I assume you've heard of the Wizard Howl?" she continued, settling back into the chair. "Of how he kidnaps girls and eats their hearts?"

Sophie shuddered and began to very much wonder why she was still there. Horrible Howl certainly had nothing to do with her. Nothing to do with a special order hat.

"Rumors are usually based on some truth, Miss Hatter. I suppose that's why they are feared. He... I was lured to Howl's lair of a castle. I couldn't have been much older than you. I had enough magic then to escape with my life, but alas..." She turned her glassy eyes upon the eldest Hatter girl. "I was unable to escape with my heart."

Sophie felt something within her recoil. '_That's just not... I mean, how is that even-?'_ Her gray eyes narrowed and she wrung her hands, desperately thinking, resisting the urge to take a few steps back.

_'There's always the possibility that this fine woman is quite mad,'_ Sophie reasoned with hope.

"But how is it that you are here and alive, when the wizard has your heart?" Sophie finally had the courage to ask. She wished she hadn't.

"Why, the same way that Wizard Howl survives without _his_ heart, dear," the woman murmured with a smile. "Magic. That's why I came to you -"

The woman suddenly winced and clutched at her chest, doubling over on her seat. Sophie gasped and was at her side in a moment. Her gentle touch to the woman's fine shoulder sent another wave of unease through Sophie's body, but she ignored it on the premise that perhaps the woman's heartlessness made her feel like this. "Are you all right?"

"Ahg. I'm so sorry, sweetheart," the woman grimaced, using Sophie's assistance to draw herself upright in the chair. The eldest Hatter was tired again, but at least the woman was feeling better.

"It's this absence of my heart," she explained. "I think the wizard has been drawing my life energy from it recently. I don't know why he waited so long. And if he decides to devour my heart..."

She let the unpleasant words hang in the air, suspended like twitchy spiders in their webs.

Skepticism was ever present in Sophie. The woman's story was plausible, but she sensed something off about it. She knew what was wanted from her now. "Special order." "A heart." The question was, Why Sophie Hatter? She felt so conflicted. Never had she had a day so full of emotional turmoil.

_'Well...'_ Sophie reevaluated. _'Except for maybe that time I discovered Lettie had sewed my shoes to a hat.'_

She wanted to show the woman gratitude for rescuing her from the sailors. But she did not think she was capable of expressing it the way the woman wanted her to.

"I'm sorry, Madame, I truly am. But I can't help you. I'm not even sure why you came to me!" she laughed softly with a bit of frustration. "I mean, retrieve your heart from _Wizard Howl?_ I couldn't even defend myself from two sailors. My place is in this hat shop. I don't belong on such adventures."

"Oh, I want you to retrieve a heart for me, dear, but not my own heart," the woman casually corrected. "I want you to steal Howl's heart."

Sophie froze.

With a sigh, the tall visitor lifted herself from the chair and straightened her gloves, then patted Sophie's arm and walked towards the door. She paused midway to leave a final comment.

"Please... Will you at least consider this fading woman's request?" her beautiful voice asked. Her voice was so sad that Sophie _must_ have imagined the flash of cold steel in her gaze. "If we can use Howl's heart as a ransom, imagine all of the girls' lives we can save in the future, those in his lair at this moment. I can't go because he'd recognize me."

"I... I'll consider it," Sophie answered softly, her brow slightly furrowed. "But I must know one thing: Why me?"

"There's more to you than meets the eye, Miss Hatter," the woman said shrewdly. "Your plain attire and ability to blend will already give you an advantage over everyone else I tried to send."

_'Everyone else?'_

"But there is one simple reason: Howl tried to take you earlier today... and you escaped."

_'Howl tried to take me today.'_

This was almost more than Sophie could digest. More than discovering that a witch had saved her and wanted her to go on a quest. But how - when had Howl tried to take her? Images began bursting into focus in her mind, of orange lamplight, of white masks and purple suits ... of oily men, their limbs dripping off thick, fat globs...

"_Blob men_," Sophie gasped, remembering one's slimy touch at her neck as it grabbed her braid and another's brush to her wrist as it attempted to snag her from behind. "Blob men!" she repeated louder, staring up with wide eyes at the surprised woman. "I should have recognized they were his. Of course ugly old Howl would allow creatures like that to roam Market Chipping at night!"

"Yes, you mentioned them earlier, didn't you?" the woman mused. She gazed at Sophie thoughtfully. Then she looked very, very concerned.

"Miss Hatter - They didn't touch you, did they? Did they touch you?"

"Well, um ... Yes, actually. Oh goodness, is that bad?"

The woman gave a broad dismissive sweep of her hand, which Sophie thought was odd. It was as if the woman wanted to get her attention, but Sophie was certain she was more attentive to the woman that moment than she had been to anything in months.

"How long ago did they touch you, thirty minutes? Forty? Oh, we've been talking for such a long time, but there's still a chance... Sophie." The woman leaned down and stared the eighteen-year old in the eyes. "How are you feeling?"

Sophie was feeling rather tired, actually. But the woman's concern seemed to trigger something, for she suddenly felt exhausted, as if her feet and eyelids were inlaid with lead. Her normally rigid posture sagged. Sophie turned towards the green upholstered chair and tiredly reached across to it. "What's happening to me?" she murmured.

"You're tired," the woman stated with mounting horror in her voice. "You're suddenly exhausted. I've heard of this happening once before, when Howl couldn't get a girl to his castle. He worked through his minions to put a spell on her, a spell that took about thirty minutes to activate."

The woman's words began to grow fuzzy in Sophie's ears. She took another step and stumbled, but even as she regained her balance, her eye sight became blurry. None of her dizziness could conceal the sharp prick of pain that stabbed her chest.

"I'm going to do what I can do to help you," the tall, unsettled woman breathed, "though it might not be much because I don't have the full power that comes with my heart." She wrung her hands yet made no attempt help Sophie to the chair. "I hope it isn't the same spell on you, because if it is, I'm worried. I only recall so many details."

By this point, Sophie had doubled over, clutching at her heart because the pain was so great. A war waged inside her against the magic. Her heart felt constricted, squeezed by an invisible snake. She had not the strength to cry for help. _'A few more... steps...'_

Sophie did not see the tall woman's smirk as she stumbled and fell to her knees. But she heard her words.

"...spell has an undiscovered purpose, but we do know one thing. The girl was in pain after the fatigue. But then it only got much worse."

Pain seared the inside of Sophie. And then it all went black. For the first time in her life, Sophie Hatter fainted.


	9. Fireside Chat

**A/N:**** This chapter is shorter than usual. Sorry for taking so long! ^,^' But I've been busy as much as the rest of us. I'm nicknaming July and August the "Months of Bombardment." **

**Brief Re-Ca****p of Chapter 6: The blonde stranger, a.k.a. Sorcerer Jenkins, examined the mess left behind by blob men in the side-street where Sophie was first attacked. He had his apprentice, Michael, use a wind spell when they heard blob men coming. Jenkins decided to leave Market Chipping shortly after. **

**If you have any questions or comments, feel free to message me! :)  
**

**Disclaimer: Thank you, Diana Wynne Jones, for creating the lovely tale of Howl's Moving Castle! And thank you, Mr. Miyazaki, for giving us your beautiful depiction of it on screen!  
**

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_"To Steal a Heart"_

**Chapter 8: Fireside Chat  
**

Darkness. The cool, blue darkness of early morning, when even the birds are settled cozily into their quiet nests and all the air ponders in a gentle hush.

The sleepy town was immersed in this kind of darkness. Its streets and lamp posts and small potted flowers were damp with lumbering night dew. An early traveler could be heard tapping his walking stick along the ground, and the mist that muffled his footsteps was far from sinister. The residents of the seaside town of Porthaven slept in peace, waiting for the first light of dawn to wake them from their slumber.

Within a run-down, plain little building, a figure stretched out on a bed. A restless night marked him by his rumpled night clothes and the shadows beneath his eyes. He stared sleepily at a jeweled spider threading her web on the ceiling. The thoughts that stirred in his head so early were not particularly commendable, but they frequented his mind often.

The Great Sorcerer Jenkins usually woke dreaming about himself.

He sat up with a graceful yawn and swung his long legs over the bedside. Picking his way through the myriad of obstacles littering the floor, he plucked a blue and silver suit and the harlequin hat off a chair.

_'Let's see what you can do,'_ he thought, smiling at the latter. Two more steps, and Jenkins opened the door and walked into the hallway. Five more steps, and the bathroom door closed behind him with a creak and a muffled click.

The sound of hot water gushing through the pipes disturbed the stillness of the household.

Two hours later, Jenkins emerged from his bath and morning preparations, shimmering clean and breathtaking. He placed his foot on the top step of the stairway but paused, thinking better of it. His flaxen hair swished across his shoulders as he backtracked and pushed open a door by the top of the landing.

Michael slept soundly with his face tucked into his sheets. Spell books and parchment were sprawled all over his bed. One volume lay open near his head, where he had been reading it until his eyes failed him. Jenkins glided over to read the title on the page.

"'Vento volo...' Wind Flight." He smiled. Using a brief spell, he gathered all of Michael's books into a pile on the floor, then carefully folded the covers over the fifteen-year-old. Michael snuggled deeper into the sheets in his sleep.

Dust puffed out from under Jenkins' shoes as he tread down the stairs. He crossed the downstairs floor to a cluttered work table at the side of the room.

"Someone's up early," a voice grumbled behind him.

Jenkins reached around a dusty tome and grasped half a loaf of bread. He broke off a piece and popped it in his mouth, grimacing at the taste. A fire kindled in an alcove behind him, so he carried the loaf with him as he went to stand before it.

"... Michael is dead asleep," he commented. He snapped off another piece of bread.

"Yeah, and I would be, too, if ya hadn't woken me," the fire complained. He opened his fiery maw to catch the food tossed his way. He stuck a flaming tongue out after swallowing. "Ick. Stale. I do have a sense of taste, ya know. Leaving money for groceries any time soon?"

"Michael fell asleep studying that air spell, Calcifer," the wizard continued as if he had not heard. He chuckled softly. "We landed barely twenty feet away on a roof. I think he was nervous last night; he was able to carry himself much farther during practice."

"Hmph. I'll bet ya didn't tell him where your first air spell landed _you_. A young lady's balcony - honestly, even at such a young age?"

Jenkins tutted. "Reading my memories again, old friend?" He said it teasingly, taking in another mouthful of bread. Swallowing with admirable fortitude, he gave the rest to Calcifer and moved to grab a log of wood. "I'll have you know, it takes great talent to be a lady's man. And… _exceptionally _good looks_._"

Calcifer rolled his eyes. Fires, in general, did not usually have eyes in Ingary, but this fact did not particularly bother him. He was, after all, a fire demon.

Calcifer reached up and received the wood log from Jenkins' outstretched hand, but he glared balefully at the blonde as he wrapped his searing arms securely around it. "I almost ran out of log last night, Howl. You know what could have happened! Why were you out so late? Dragged Michael around with you, too..." He sputtered. "You better not be teachin' him to womanize!"

The wizard frowned. "Of course not, Calcifer. You know I don't share."

Howl - known infamously to many, more fondly recognized as Sorcerer Jenkins from Porthaven to Market Chipping, and the "blonde stranger" to few - reached up to adjust his harlequin top hat, which he had magically colored to match his suit. He felt strangely attracted to that hat. Perhaps it was because of its magical enhancement, but maybe he liked it because it reminded him of that mouse girl.

"You know we ran into trouble," Howl calmly continued. "We couldn't walk the streets. Besides, Michael needed extra time to get us home safely."

"Well, that's the other thing! You made the kid spell ya back to the castle when ya could have easily done it twice as fast, blob minions or not. Even a thousand of 'em wouldn't have been able to track your scent!"

"I know," Howl said simply. The fire demon watched the wizard adjust his sleeves, which were long and voluminous. "But last night made him stronger. I want Michael to be prepared to defend himself if _she_ comes while I'm not here."

"You mean, 'If the Witch of the Waste comes,'" Calcifer corrected dryly.

Howl glared.

Calcifer lifted his arms in mock surrender. "What? _Someone _around here can't be scared to say the woman's name!"

"Hmph. Well, there's something I've been meaning to tell _you_, Calcifer. From now on - at least for three months or so - I want you and Michael to start calling me 'Master Jenkins' only. Don't use my name."

_"What_?"

Howl ignored him and began humming an upbeat little tune, giving his hair another smooth-over. Calcifer rolled his eyes.

"Aw, come on, Howl! Everyone talks about you," he said. "The Witch won't be able to track you down magically through your name like that."

"'Master Jenkins,'" Howl corrected. "And perhaps... but what if one of our customers learns my name and she overhears them talking about me?" the blonde pointed out. "She's a smart woman, Calcifer. She won't use magic as her only means of finding me."

"There ain't no way I'm calling you 'master' anything!" Calcifer grumbled. He arched a fiery eyebrow as Howl began walking towards the front door. "Where are you going?"

"Oh, just out to take care of some business," Howl replied nonchalantly.

"Hah! More like out to capture some girl's heart."

Howl paused before the short flight of stairs leading down to the door and looked back at Calcifer. "That's what I said, didn't I? Business." He winked and went gracefully down the stairs. The door closed behind him with a click.

"... Sheesh," Calcifer said to the empty room.

* * *

Michael trudged down from upstairs two hours later, rubbing sleepily at his eyes. "Good morning, Calcifer," he said, stifling a yawn. "Is Master Howl... Jenkins up yet?"

Calcifer snorted. "Yeah, he's awake. He left a while ago to take care of some 'business.'"

Michael's shadowed eyes widened slightly. "You didn't tell him what I told you last night, did you, Calcifer?" he asked. He glanced around before lowering his voice abashedly. "That I was horrid to that lady with the broken straw hat, Martha's sister?"

"Are you crazy or somethin'? I wouldn't do that!" Calcifer exclaimed. "Howl would ask more questions about how pretty the sisters were than why you snapped. Torture, I tell ya!"

"Oh good. So he still doesn't know about Martha." Michael sighed in relief as his shoulders sagged in a young lover's sadness. He trudged over to the cluttered table in the room and fished around its contents for a second. His hand came up with a chunk of cheese. Green mold was flowering on its side.

"Ick," Michael said distastefully.

"Tell me about it."


	10. To Be Marked

**Re-Cap: (Chpt. 7) The tall woman in black saved Sophie from the sailors, and the two women arrived at the hat shop rather quickly. The woman turned out to be a witch who wants Horrible Howl's heart, claiming that Howl stole her own heart and must be stopped before he victimizes any more girls. She asked Sophie to find Howl's heart for her. Sophie said she'd consider it. As the woman was leaving, she turned to Sophie in concern and told her that Howl might have put a spell on her. The chapter ended with Sophie falling to the floor in a faint. **

**Do these re-caps actually help, or are they bothersome? **

**A/N****: Sorry for the wait! I'm going to try to be more persistent about updating. I try to be very aware of my story so I don't miss any details, and that usually takes a while (I'm a slow-poke and a procrastinator). Thank you all for reading! :D**

**Disclaimer****: Howl is handsome, Sophie is kind. Oh, how I wish HMC was mine! **

**But it's not. **

**P.S.- Happy New Year!  
**

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_"To Steal a Heart"_

**Chapter 9: To Be Marked**

Light. The warm, pale light of dawn, when the sun peeks out from its covers of the night sky and teases the sleepy birds from their nests.

Market Chipping was touched by this light. It crept across dew-moistened doorsteps and leaned calmly against closed shutters. The dawn light took a slow stroll through the near empty streets, from the east side of Market Chipping to the west, slowly bringing warmth to even the chilliest of corners. It leapt on the breezes that flew to those taking a long, sweet deep breath; the light pounded playfully on the eyes of hard workers and heavy drinkers. It tugged on those who needed to get up, open their shops, and face the new day.

Within an upstairs bedroom of a hat shop, a young woman was curled up under the covers. Her pale brow was tight as she slept, and her reddish-brown braid lay limp against her pillow like a slack rope. The light came cautiously into the woman's room at first, sneaking around pale yellow curtains and across the hardwood floor. It climbed over a pair of boots. It shimmied up her bed covers. Then, as the sun yawned and gave its beams a big stretch, the light was sent flying over the woman, chasing the shadow on her face into the corners of her room.

Sophie blinked open her eyes.

She felt for the world as if she had been pulled out of some deep, dark dream. Not bothering to cover a jaw-popping yawn, Sophie turned her stiff neck so she was looking at the ceiling and then started to unfurl her limbs. She slowed down immediately because of the pain.

_'Ouch, I hurt_,_'_ Sophie thought in astonishment, wincing as she moved her sore limbs so she could lay on her back. She carefully tested her muscles, stretching her arms out like a bird and pointing her feet down like a dolphin.

"Oh!" she quietly exclaimed, relaxing quickly. Most of the pain was originating from her waist and the muscles in her legs. It was almost like she had been running.

_'But that's ridiculous,'_ Sophie thought. She had not run hard in years. _'All those days of sitting must have caught up to me, that's all.'_

The young woman reached for her blanket, which had slipped down in the night. She jumped at the stinging pain when she grabbed it. Sophie lifted her hands in front of her face.

Angry red scrapes decorated her palms. She stared at them. Then she stared at the gray sleeves on her arms with their snug, conservative cuffs.

Sophie had not put on her night gown. Now that she thought about it, she did not recall even climbing into bed.

The Hatter girl lay there, stumped. Well, this was fantastic. She would have twisted her covers in her hands had she not remembered that it would hurt.

She was sore as if she had been exercising, her hands were mysteriously scraped, and she did not remember going to bed. Making lists in her head usually helped Sophie organize her thoughts. However, Sophie felt something nagging on her mind, as if she was missing an important factor.

She frowned worriedly, staring at the ceiling.

And then she remembered.

Sophie went very still.

Time seemed to slow to a crawl in Sophie's little bedroom. Only ten to fifteen minutes passed. To Sophie it felt like hours. But it _still_ did not seem like there was enough time in the world for her to process what had happened to _her_, hat shop Sophie Hatter.

It all seemed so surreal. She tried to go over the events in her mind and discover where she had gone wrong.

_'I never should have left the hat shop so late,'_ complained one side of her.

_'But I was waiting for Henrietta and Charlotte to come back,'_ another part pointed out.

_'It does not take too long to get to Cesari's. Running into that blonde stranger was what took up so much time.'_

_'But _he_ approached_ me._ Besides. We did not talk long. Chatting with Martha was what put me out so late.'_

_'Ah, but that was inevitable,'_ said another logical side of her.

Sophie sighed heavily and buried her face in her pillow. If she had never gone down that dark alleyway by herself - how foolish! - then would she have gotten into a similar mess? Seeing all of those men on the main street had scared her. But Sophie had no idea that worse things were down the "short-cut" she had chosen to take.

"Oh, what have I gotten myself into...?" Sophie groaned. She refused to cry. She had done enough of that when her father had died.

Sophie had always been able to rationalize in difficult situations; it was a gift of hers. It was what had kept her the strong one when Fanny disappeared for weeks or when funds were running low. And it would help her as she slowly realized the gravity of the fact that she had a curse on her.

_'Take a deep breath,'_ Sophie told herself, trying to calm her fearful lungs. The curse might be deadly, but at least she had a witch to help her. _'Whose powers are quickly waning,'_ she added cynically.

"Stop it!" she scolded herself, once again fighting tears. "You just have to think like Martha." Sophie took another deep breath. "Okay, so at least you survived the blob men and... Horrible Howl's wicked curse."

Sophie closed her eyes and held a hand over her heart, sensing for any sign that it might burst out of her chest. A tense minute passed.

Nothing happened. Sophie relaxed slightly and bit her lip. "All right, so you barely survived." She blew exasperated air at her pillow. Never mind. She was thinking more like Lettie than Martha.

The dawn-lit room was quiet for a few minutes as Sophie lay in deep thought. She gazed at the red, dirty scrapes on the palm of one of her hands. Shadows crept back over her form. Outside, clouds dragged themselves through the sky and settled over the hopeful rays of the sun.

Sophie found her thoughts trailing to the tall woman in black. The woman had seemed pleasant yet... so cold. She certainly had not appeared to be someone to cross. Sophie wondered what the witch would be like if she had her heart back. Would she be different? Less... calculating? At the very least, Sophie hoped that she could approach the woman without feeling uneasy. Maybe that's how Howl could be found. Sophie determined that the first man she felt as sick as a dog around would have to be him.

Sophie suddenly shuddered violently, curling into a ball. Awful, ugly, beastly, old, _wicked_ Howl! Now why did he have to go and take that poor woman's heart, and the hearts of all of those other girls? And more troubling still...

"Why did he even want _my_ heart?" Sophie wondered aloud. She did not think she had a face that encouraged second glances. He must have been desperate.

One-hundred and one questions began to surface in her mind.

The sheets rustled as she slid out of bed. What she needed was time to think - or to forget. Perhaps if she pretended that the unpleasant events of last night had never happened, then she might have a peaceful, uneventful day in the hat shop.

First things first: she needed to change her clothes.

Sophie grimaced all the way to her bureau. When she stopped, she examined her dress as she tried to massage her aching muscles. It was still damp from the night's run, damp from sweat and fear. Sophie decided that she might as well take a sponge bath while she was at it.

Clean cloths and a basin of fresh water were already in her room, where she had conveniently placed them the morning before. All Sophie had to do was lock the door and close her curtains. She leaned down and peeled off her stockings.

As the left one came off, the young woman caught sight of her ankle.

"Ah!" Sophie shrieked in surprise. She stumbled and landed on her backside with a loud thump.

"Oh, darnation!" she cried in disbelief, scrambling to get a look at that ankle again. The skirt came up with a yank, and Sophie found herself looking at her ankle with wide eyes.

"Oh no... oh no," she groaned. "This _cannot_ be happening to me!"

Sophie Hatter was indeed in emotional turmoil. On her left leg was a mark: a dark and gaudy mark, about the length of two hair ribbons that wrapped itself several times around Sophie's dainty ankle. It resembled a broken heart wrapped in intricate chains, and hanging in those chains were tiny hearts, and hanging off those chains were more tiny hearts, and dangling off all of those tiny hearts were small dots. At a closer glance, Sophie realized that they might be tiny hearts.

"Oh, this cannot be happening to me!" she repeated, holding her face in her hands.

Sophie pushed to her feet and went to the water basin, lurching as the taut muscles in her legs protested. She dunked a cloth in the water and leaned down. She tried to scrub off the mark. It wiggled as soon as she touched it.

"Un!" Sophie quickly pulled her hand away. She stared at the mark, disconcerted. After a moment, she carefully touched the cloth to her ankle again. The mark began to shudder on the surface of her skin. This time Sophie tried to ignore it, scrubbing as hard as should could. It refused to come off.

"Goodness, it's like a... magical tattoo or something!" she exclaimed under her breath. She stood up again and reached for the water basin.

There was an envelope on the wash table. Sophie stiffened at its mysterious appearance. She did not need any more surprises. Hesitantly, she put her cloth down and picked up the envelope. The front of it was blank.

Sophie opened it up and slid out a piece of parchment. After unfolding it, she saw these words. They were written in crisp, elegant script.

_"Miss Sophie Hatter:_

_After you fainted from Wizard Howl's curse, I put a spell of protection over you to counter his dark spell. There was a marking on you, however. It is the symbol of his curse, and I was unable to remove it."_

"So that's what it is," Sophie muttered, glancing down towards her ankle.

_"Keep it hidden. I carried you to your bed, if you were wondering. You poor girl. I am unhappy to say that due to my decreasing power, I shall have to renew the protection spell on you every two weeks or so. During these times, we will meet at your hat shop."_

"...decreasing power..." So the woman in black _had_ written the letter. Sophie flushed at the thought of such a high-born woman carrying her to bed. But the protection spell only lasted about two weeks? Sophie did not know much about magic, but that spell did not sound very strong. What would happen if it stopped working earlier than their meeting time?

_"Howl must be stopped - soon. You can begin the search for his heart by finding where he has most recently frequented. The sooner you find the heart's location, the sooner we can deal with your own curse. Until then."_

Sophie stared at the letter in her hands. Instead of a signature, there was a simple drawing of an ostrich plume at the bottom.

Seconds later, the parchment crumbled to ash in her hands and dissipated to the floor. She flinched.

Then it was final.

If the witch did not get Howl's heart, then the witch might never retrieve her own. Sophie would die without a way to fight the curse; at least, she assumed she would die. The pain she had felt the night before had been terrible and real.

Sophie began to pace. She had never gone on a quest before. Certainly she had read stories in her spare time about young men and women who left their homes, searching for large dragons or magical items. They had never been described as fearful. They had never been said to feel unfamiliarity or impending doom before they went on their quests.

Sophie wanted to crawl in bed and hide under the covers. She straightened her back instead.

_'That woman and I are in a mess,'_ she thought. _'If faking courage is what it takes to get out of it, then by all means, I'm going to fake it!'_

With new-found determination, Sophie snatched up a wet cloth. She stiffened.

"Oww..." she moaned. Heart-hunting could come later. First she needed to take care of these scratches.


	11. Snipping the Thread

**A/N****: Okay, I'm doing my best to hurry it along, but some stories just flow the way they want to! Besides, I write everything by hand first.**

**Also, I've been getting many pleas for Howl. Don't worry, Howl IS coming soon, and then the fun shall truly begin...**

**Re-Cap of Last Chapter:**** Sophie woke up in her room, and memories of the day before came swarming back. She discovers a gaudy mark (more like tattoo) on her ankle, and then she reads an explanatory letter that the tall woman in black had left her. Sophie then decides that she must help the woman by stealing Howl's heart.**

**Thank you for letting me know what you thought about the re-cap, by the way. I shall continue to post it!  
**

**Disclaimer: "Howl's Moving Castle" is not mine. There. I said it. Are you happy now? What? You're _not?_ Hey, whadda ya mean, you're going to sue me anyways? Help, fanfiction buddies! Tell them I don't have any money!

* * *

**

_"To Steal a Heart"_

**Chapter 10: Snipping the Thread**

Sophie cleaned up as best she could as fast as she could, having no time to take a normal bath.

She was going to be late! Or in other words, on time! Rose, who usually arrived earlier than the other girls, might wonder where she was.

She chose to don a faded sea green dress. It was one of the simplest ones she owned, and she wanted to attract as little attention as possible today. After slipping an apron over that, she then checked her scratches. They weren't deep, but they were tender enough that she chose to wrap them in gauze. Sophie braided her hair tightly. When she found coins in the pocket of her gray dress, she could not for the life of her remember where she had gotten them. She supposed it did not matter. She put the coins in her green dress's pocket, carefully laced up her boots, and stood tall, fists on her hips.

"You can do this, Sophie," she said to herself firmly. "Time to face the day."

Steeling her mind, Sophie opened her bedroom door and walked purposefully down the shiny wooden stairs.

When she went outside and crossed into the building next door, she heard activity in the back workroom. _'Rose is going to want to talk about her beau,'_ Sophie realized. _'I'm going to have to appear excited.'_

Sophie passed by a gilded mirror hanging on the wall and pasted on her best fake smile. She winced. _'Now, why did that hurt, too?'_ After a bit of tweaking, she think she got it right. For the first time in a while, Sophie was glad that her family members were not home. Lettie, Martha, and even Fanny would sense something was off, and then... they would _prod_. Her sisters were the worst. Sophie knew. She had taught them herself.

The workroom was more occupied than she had thought, for several voices floated through the open doorway. A curious frown found its way onto Sophie's face as she stepped inside.

"... and then, his eyes filled with the sincerest love I have ever seen in a man, Mr. Smith - I mean, _Sacheverell_," the woman speaking gave a dreamy sigh. It was echoed by her listeners. "... knelt before me and said, 'My dearest lady! A week and a day ago, I scoffed at the idea of love at first sight. But before twenty-four hours had passed, you -'" the woman became breathless, "'- you... had flipped around my world entirely. I know it seems sudden, but my heart implores that I ask this of you!'"

Rose squealed and the others held their breaths.

"'My sweet, sweet...' Sophie!" Fanny cried, spotting her in the doorway. She leapt off her stool and came at Sophie with a flurry of skirts, rocking Sophie on her heels as she threw her arms around her.

"Oh, Sophie love, why did you not tell me you were there? And to think, I waited a whole week to share that story with you and you waltz right in at the climax!"

"Fanny!" Sophie managed, a real laugh squeezing out of her. "Fanny, you're making it d-difficult to breathe!"

What on earth was her step-mother doing here? Fanny always sent letters announcing when she was coming home - _always_. Not one, but two, and sometimes three. Sophie had yet to receive the first.

Fanny went on chattering in her ear. Sophie tuned her out for a moment as she buried her face in her step-mother's fragrant (and expensive)-smelling shoulder. They soon released each other.

"But Fanny!" Sophie said as the woman opened her mouth excitedly. "I had no word! I wish I had known; I would have prepared for your arrival."

"No word?" Fanny exclaimed. "Why, I sent you two letters! How odd," she mumbled darkly. "Courier tricksters. You can't trust anybody these days."

"Perhaps Sophie simply _misplaced_ the letters," suggested an unpleasant voice.

Sophie recognized that voice. She looked over Fanny's shoulder at the blonde sitting behind the work table.

"Henrietta," she said evenly.

Henrietta lifted her chin.

Rose bounced on her stool next to Charlotte and looked imploringly at Sophie. "Sooooophiiee, she was getting to the best part!" she fussed, no doubt thinking about her own beau.

"All right, all right," Fanny said, turning back to them. "I might as well come out and say it since you're all here."

"Ariel's not here!" Henrietta pointed out.

"She's not? Oh, but darlings, I just have to tell you now! We'll give her the news when she arrives."

_'Odd,'_ Sophie thought. _'Ariel is never late, yet Henrietta actually appears to have arrived early...'_

"Ladies," Fanny said, looking at each of them. They waited eagerly. "Ladies, I got married!"

Sophie froze, her eyebrows rising on her forehead.

"Married!" all of the young women exclaimed.

"You mean we missed the wedding?" Rose cried.

Fanny slid off her left glove and laughed as the girls climbed off their stools to crowd around. They "oohed" and "aahed" at the ring that glinted on her finger.

"Can you believe it? That's a real diamond!" Fanny declared proudly. "Mr. Smith is rich, too!"

"Fanny..." Sophie cautioned. Her step-mother patted her hair with a free hand and clucked her tongue.

"Oh, it's not like that, Sophie. I honestly didn't know until _after_ he proposed!"

Fanny was married. Sophie was a bit stunned, but not nearly as shocked as she thought she would be. In fact, Sophie felt like she had been preparing for this moment for years. All of those husband-hunting ventures were destined to turn out like this sooner or later.

However, she was concerned. Fanny could take care of herself, but would this Mr. Smith be a good husband?

Sophie observed the joy in Fanny's face. _'Perhaps...'_ she mused. Then Sophie got the feeling that she should be more worried for Mr. Smith. She could only imagine what Fanny was going to do to his pocket book.

"Oh, it's soooo beautiful," Henrietta gushed. "The gold band fits you _perfectly_. And how charming of your husband, having the diamond cut into a heart shape!"

_'Hearts, hearts, hearts! What is with all of these hearts?'_ Sophie thought in frustration. She instinctively glanced down at her ankle and stopped herself, redirecting her gaze around the room.

Her gray eyes collided with the pale, blue eyes of Charlotte.

Sophie was surprised at the intensity of Charlotte's stare. It was almost like she was trying to peer into her soul. The black-haired woman furrowed her brow, blinked, and then turned away.

Sophie's jaw dropped. _'Well, what was that all about?'_

"Now ladies," Fanny announced, putting her glove back on. "I have something very important to tell you. I think you should all sit down. Especially you, Sophie," she added gently.

Sophie tore her gaze from Charlotte to look at her. Henrietta snickered.

Slowly, Sophie lowered herself onto a stool next to Rose. More surprises. Could she handle another one? Probably. A pin cushion full of needles can always make room for another needle.

Fanny remained standing, an elegant visage as she encompassed them all with her gaze.

"I shall start by saying this first, that you are all lovely young girls with your whole lives ahead of you. I know that after a few hours in here, you begin to feel bored, old, and lethargic," she smiled. "But it's not so bad. You have young men calling on you, and plans, and dreams for the future!"

Sophie pressed her lips together, watching a dust mote float to the ground.

"When I first hired you," Fanny continued, "I took liberties of researching your financial backgrounds. Rose, you were working here when we still had Marianne and Bessie. That was two years ago? Two and a half? Ariel came shortly." Henrietta simpered as Fanny looked at her. "Henrietta, you and dear Charlotte have almost been with us a year now."

_'And Sophie has been here almost nineteen years,'_ Sophie wanted her to say for some reason.

"We have become like a family," Fanny said truthfully. She flashed a brilliant smile. "I did some research. I know my decision will not put you girls in any straits, but just to be safe, I did a bit of planting here and there about how wonderful my hat shop girls are and what hard workers they are."

"Oh Fanny, you didn't," Sophie said, suddenly realizing where this was going.

"So you needn't worry about a thing. I've already made up my mind." Fanny looked Sophie in the eye. "I'm selling the hat shop."

The rest of the girls looked at her as well. Sophie was speechless. She was not sure what to say.

"Sell the shop?" a voice exclaimed. Ariel stood in the doorway, her hand stiff near her mouth as if she had started to yawn and had forgotten about it. "Good morning, Mrs. Hatter, I am glad to see you, but do you mean that?"

"Of course she means it," Henrietta scoffed, leaning against the worktable and propping her dainty chin in hand. "She wouldn't have said so otherwise. Besides, it's 'Mrs. Smith' now; she got married! She herself said the hat shop's boring." She pouted. "And who wants to blister their fingers all day, anyways?"

"So you talked her into it," Ariel accused, her eyes slightly narrowing.

Henrietta batted her eyelashes innocently.

"No one talked me into anything," Fanny interceded, looking back and forth between the two with a brow arched.

Ariel sighed and held a hand against her forehead. "Look what you've done, Henrietta. Now my life is going to get much more difficult."

"On the contrary, I should think this would make everything all the more easier," Henrietta said smugly, and she and Ariel held gazes for a long, tense moment.

Rose rolled her eyes and leaned towards Sophie, cupping her hand around her mouth.

"Of _course_ she would say that selling the shop makes it easier. Henrietta thinks that having no work at all makes life easier."

Sophie felt a smile tugging at the corners of her lips as Rose ranted on. "And if I swore - which I don't - but if I did," Rose whisper-yelled, "I would swear that one day, Henrietta is going to marry a rich man _just_ like she wants. And then she shall shop all day long because you know what? She's going to be fat as a cow, and none of her clothes will fit her! She will eat and eat, have twenty cats, and wear a large gold wig on top!"

"What did you say?" Henrietta shrieked, finally catching on that Rose was mumbling about her. For Rose's "whisper-yell" was not always intended to keep anything secret.

Sophie tried desperately to contain her laughter as Rose stretched and stood, slowly inching behind her.

Henrietta heard Sophie snicker and latched on to her new target. "I don't see why _you_ are laughing of all people," she snapped. "You just had the only thing you were good for snatched out from under you. Now what are you going to do? If you start anything new, you'll fail, being the eldest of three and all," she added snidely.

Rose gasped angrily behind Sophie.

"Henrietta!" Fanny exclaimed, shocked at Henrietta's "different" behavior. Charlotte grabbed Henrietta's arm in warning, and Ariel stood beside Fanny and yawned.

Sophie laughed.

She laughed and laughed, not too hard, and not entirely in amusement. She had been wondering how to take the news that the shop was being sold.

She was sad because of the hard work that had been put into maintaining it. She was confused because she had never actually believed she'd do anything else, even after (and if) she stole Howl's heart. Life moved on like an unceasing train, and Sophie supposed that she would just have to ride along with it.

In that short period of time, Sophie had also come to understand that she was very much alone despite her friends. If she told anyone about the curse, she was certain that Howl would find out about them, and how very unfortunate for her that all of her close loved ones were female. Howl would eat their hearts like cake.

So selling the shop would benefit everyone, in ways obvious and unseen. The girls would be scattered and most difficult to catch, Sophie could heart-hunt, and then a new life would begin if she succeeded. Her life was already turned upside down; establishing a new standing mustn't be too difficult, then, despite her being the eldest of three.

On Sophie laughed. For Rose really did have a witty tongue, and Henrietta's bickering was not as provoking as she thought it was.

"Henrietta," Sophie said. Her smile grew. "Do shut up."

Rose, Charlotte, and Ariel looked at each other, their eyes widening in shock.

Henrietta blanched.

"Ex... Ex_cuse_ me?" she stuttered. "Mrs. Hatter, did you _hear_ what she -?"

"Fight your own battles for once," Sophie said in a more amused tone than intended. She stood and dusted off her apron. "Fanny, I need to talk to you."

"Mrs. Hatter! Smith!"

"Don't aggravate my daughter, Henrietta," was all Fanny said. "Be careful; you don't know Sophie like I do. Besides, there's no point in arguing." She checked the wall clock. "The shop opens in fifteen minutes. Rose, go get my things and bring them to my room, will you? I want Henrietta and Charlotte in here trimming hats. Ariel, you are to be at the front of the store readying it for customers, okay?"

The words were said cheerfully, but there was no room for question. The hat shop girls nodded their consent and went to their tasks. Henrietta angrily gasped and opened her mouth.

"To work," Fanny warned with a stern glance. She followed Sophie out into the hallway.

Sophie allowed herself to be ushered to the privacy of Fanny's office. Her laughter faded, but she was filled with stubborn satisfaction and the tiniest bit of regret. Henrietta was certainly going to make things miserable for the remainder of her time here. But her reaction had been worth it.

Sophie watched Fanny open the drapes to let morning light flood the office. What was Fanny thinking?

She found out a moment later when Fanny turned to her and took a hold of her wrist.

"Now don't you worry about Henrietta, love, I'll talk to her personally," her step-mother muttered, unwrapping the gauze on Sophie's hand despite Sophie's protests. "But first I want to take a look at this. Why did you not tell me you had hurt yourself?"

"Um..." Sophie scrambled, wondering how she was going to explain.

Fanny gasped when she saw the scratches. "Oh, Sophie!"

"They're not too bad if you cover them up. You see... what happened was -"

"Too much hard work!" Fanny declared, much to Sophie's surprise. Fanny re-wrapped her hand and shook her head. "And look at you, love, you're positively frazzled! Your face is so pale... I'll tell you what." Fanny looked thoughtful. "Why don't you take the week off?"

Sophie blinked at the sudden change of events.

"I..." She instinctively began to protest. If the shop was going to be sold, they would need her help. Yet the tall woman in black had said Wizard Howl was drawing energy from her heart... or slowly eating it... or something like that. If she waited to get started, she might be too late.

However, she still had to know if Fanny was serious. The woman had been known to say things and then forget about them, like the time Sophie had asked her if she could receive a wage.

"What about the shop?" she asked.

Her step-mother misinterpreted her question. "Oh Sophie, I'm sorry I didn't tell you. But I honestly think it's for the best -"

"It's all right."

"- and since I'll be living in a grand house now, you must come and live with me and my husband. Every need shall be met, and we can even set up a little alcove like your old one here if you like -"

"Fanny, it's okay."

"- but I'm not certain about that last bit. I know you appear to love the shop, but I think you've just resigned yourself to it since you thought you'd be working here the rest of your life."

The two went quiet, finally hearing what the other person had been saying.

"Oh."

Sophie recovered first, slightly dazed by Fanny's words. She had never known her step-mother to be so perceptive. She gently took Fanny's hands in her own.

"Fanny, I won't deny it. I am upset that you did not even talk to me before you decided to sell the shop." She interrupted Fanny as she started to apologize again. "I... I think it's for the best. Thank you for the week break. Actually, though, I didn't intend to discuss the hat shop with you."

Fanny's bright pink lips made an "o" shape in response. "You didn't?"

"No." Sophie's mind churned. An idea came to her and she snagged it. "I'm going job hunting."

The room went silent.

Fanny's eyes widened. Sophie steeled herself.

"_Whaaaaaaaaaaat?"_

"Think about it!" Sophie intercepted, scrambling for a convincing reason. "I'm so task-oriented, I'll feel bereft without something to do, and a job will put me in the way of more men!" she practically yelled as skepticism clouded Fanny's face. Fanny seemed interested in this. "Well, you know, our shop isn't exactly the most masculine establishment anymore. I haven't been able to go out and catch a beau. So... on my week break, I could look for a job and - and - grandchildren!" she burst out, flustered. Oh dear, where had that come from? That wasn't exactly what she had wanted to say, but Fanny seemed to like it.

Fanny looked at her in surprise, skeptical, curious.

"_My_ Sophie?" she began slowly, her eyebrows arching. "Husband hunting? Without proper training?"

"Job hunting," Sophie corrected weakly. Her cheeks were tinted pink. She braced herself for whatever was coming. To her relief and dismay, a joyous and mischievous smile spread on Fanny's face.

"_My_ Sophie, husband hunting!" Fanny said in awe. "I never though this day would come! Just wait 'til your sisters hear about this! That's the spirit, love, you go and steal their hearts!"

Sophie winced.

Fanny wanted to style Sophie's hair, but Sophie pointedly told her that she was going to search today, not _flirt_. Fanny "tsked" and told her that she had much to learn. As Sophie began to leave the room to prepare for an outing, Fanny stopped her.

"Here," she said, lifting a necklace from under her collar. She unhooked it from her neck and clasped it around Sophie's. "Take this. It's a charm I got in Kingsbury! An established elderly sorceress gave it to me when I asked her for help. If you are looking for someone or something, it helps you find the location you need to go to." She winked. "How do you think I found my new husband?"

"Thank you," Sophie said, holding up the charm. It was... Well, it was very tacky. It looked like something a child had made. Four centimeters long and two across, it appeared to be a small stick with mud in the cracks. A small orange orb was inserted in the center of the stick, and a tiny stone dangled off the bottom by a string.

"Just whisper to it who you are looking for, and the charm will do the rest," Fanny explained. "By the way, some charms are meant to be used, not seen..." She looked helplessly at Sophie's high collar.

Sophie smiled. "I'll manage." Then she hugged Fanny with all of her might.

And so, with little delay, Sophie was soon walking to the front of the hat shop. She had a bundle on her arm and a new hat on her head, one that looked remarkably like the old one. She did not tell any of the girls where she was going. There would be too many questions, and Rose might get upset. Besides, she planned on coming back.

She stopped when she saw a green upholstered chair. Memories of the night before struck her painfully.

"Sophie," Ariel said from behind the counter. "Where are you going? Don't tell me you let Henrietta get to you."

"No," Sophie replied. She started walking again. "I'll be back later," she added, ignoring the first question.

"Well, good luck," Ariel said, her eyes giving away none of her thoughts. A long, drawn-out yawn escaped her lips. "Watch out for wizards."

As Sophie waved goodbye, a thought occurred to her.

_'Everyone says, 'Watch out for wizards,' but not once does anyone warn me about witches!'_

For some reason, that thought upset her, and Sophie indignantly marched down the steps like Henrietta had the other morning. _'Hmph,'_ she thought. _'Things__ don't turn out the way we expect them to. But still... As father used to say, "When life hands you scraps, make a patchwork hat. We don't make quilts."'_

Slightly cheered, Sophie began her search for the notorious Wizard Howl.


End file.
